Heaven Sent Sword
by Emerald Viper
Summary: Fate works in mysterious ways. This is the story of two Sidereals wrapped up in web of intrigue surrounding one retired soldier, the demon he's sworn to slay, a Wood-Aspect perpetually on the wrong side of Fate, a undead mercenary, and a secret only known to Nara-O. You may want to read The Well of Udr first - but this story does stand alone.
1. Chapter 1 - Heaven Sent

Heaven-Sent

Heaven-Sent Munno was working at his forge. It was his custom to take up his hammer in the late afternoon, just as it was his custom to rise before dawn and have a cup of jasmine tea as the first rays of morning sun cleared the eastern slope of his mountain.

Munno was a creature of habit and all of his days were carefully planned out. Every morning he tended to his goats and his hens, checked to see how his garden was faring and then walked the entire length of his fields. There was something about the way that he carried himself which caused every stubborn stalk of swamp rice to stand at attention. Even when he tried to play the part of a farmer, his former profession was still quite obvious. No matter how many years passed, Munno would always remain a soldier.

His neighbors knew him as Munno, perhaps because he had never given thought to an alias, but if any of them guessed that he was in fact the legendary swordsman who had slain the demon Iyutha thirty years ago, they said nothing of it. People of Munno's breed, who chose to live far from civilization, generally liked their privacy.

Though Munno was well past fifty and the years had not been kind to him, he still cut quite an impressive figure. He was an intimidating man, more than six feet tall and built in a manner that suggested that he was as fast as he was strong. He had a jaw that resembled his anvil, a very square nose and deep set dark eyes. When he worked his forge, Munno dressed only in his well-worn hakama and a leather smith's apron made from the thick hide of a sabre cat. The scars of innumerable battles criss-crossed his arms and his bare chest. His long black hair was shot with streaks of silver, but he showed no signs of going bald. Munno's childhood nickname had been "Bear" and in many ways, it suited him still.

It was the first of the month, which meant that as I watched him, Munno was preparing for his usual trip to the nearest town. He always packed his wagon the afternoon before, so that all he would have to do in the morning was hitch up his mules. In the town of Riverbend he would spend most of the day trading his simple metalwork for the few necessities that he could not produce for himself. Years ago, his main goal in Riverbend had been to acquire tea and honey, but recently he'd taken to raising his own bees and they were good producers.

In fact, I noticed that he had a few glass jars of amber-colored honey already packed for his impending journey. I wondered momentarily what expensive thing he intended to trade for, and decided that it was probably a new summer shirt. Though he was adept at tanning hides and sewing letter, Munno's huge, square hands were not very skilled with a spindle.

I tried to pretend that I did not know Munno as well as I did, lest my master suspect that I was up to something. As usual, it was very difficult for me not to regard him as an old friend. Every time I saw Munno, I was reminded of how how he had once stepped in and laid out a pair of thugs who'd attempted to relieve a helpless noble lady of her purse. Nor could I forget all of the mornings we'd spent together when I was a traveler simply seeking shelter for the night.

Regardless of what face I wore, Munno always offered me a bed, tea, rice and whatever else he happened to have. After I had rested, we would sit together enjoying the sunrise and talk about his goats and his fields before I went on my way. But each and every time we met, I was a stranger to him. It was becoming very difficult for me to remember that.

There was something irresistibly attractive about the way that he worked so diligently at his forge. In his retirement, the great Munno had achieved something that many monks strove for. He was truly at peace. I would have much preferred to have a cup of tea with him and ask him innocent questions about the weather and the hunting near his little preserve as I usually did... but I did not have that luxury.

I was no longer assigned to Munno. I was assigned to my master.

The live oaks which surrounded Munno's humble cottage were thick with orange butterflies. The sunlight painted the trees with a faint golden luster and the air smelled strongly of woodsmoke and iron. With each resounding blow of Munno's hammer, the butterflies fluttered and then settled again. They were part of Munno's perfect rhythm, his lovely, serene, little world. As usual, I envied him intensely. When I could afford to step away from my work, I had it in mind to find a little mountainside cottage like Munno's... but I somewhat doubted that my request for sabbatical would be approved any time soon.

At present, I knew only that it was necessary for my master to find Munno, and that my master must somehow convince him to return to the world he had forsworn when his wife and children were killed by the same horrible sorcerer who had summoned the demon Iyutha to lay waste to the Hundred Kingdoms. It seemed wrong to draw one such as Munno who had already given so much and suffered so terribly away from the simple, serene existence he had cultivated... but as it is often said, the Heavens work in mysterious ways and sometimes Fate is a complex thing.

Munno did not seem to notice either of us as we approached – or rather, he gave no sign that he did. My master, Tepet Genji watched the old swordsman with a critical eye but said nothing. Not that he usually made any sort of conversation with me. As I was a "mere mortal", my personal opinions were irrelevant.

"Excuse me?" My master said, much louder than necessary. He had a tendency to puff himself up when he was nervous, which meant that he usually came off as haughty. Like all of his breed, he was a bit arrogant, but not quite as bad as he sounded. He trotted his horse up to Munno's forge. Munno did not even glance in his direction. His long experience on battlefields throughout the Realm had taught him one painful lesson. Those ordained by the Dragons to become rulers of men were often dangerously detached from the mortals whose sweat and blood they had built their empire upon.

An Aspect of Wood, my master was of an excellent Dragon bloodline himself. In every way he resembled a Prince of the Earth, from the faintly green hue of his skin and the dusting of scales on his neck to the piny scent that surrounded him and convinced Munno's hordes of butterflies that he was in fact, a tree. They sometimes alighted on his head and he swatted them away as if they were biting flies or something similarly noxious.

I smiled despite myself every time a butterfly escaped his attention... but made certain not to laugh out loud lest he demand what I found so funny. There were two on top of his head when he approached Munno. They made him look much less authoritative than he was pretending to be.

Normally my master was more patient and pleasant, but we had just come from a meeting with his father who was a very powerful and disagreeable man. Tepet Iwazo was a provincial governor with a string of unfortunate marriages and two dozen children, most of which were chosen by the Dragons and currently fighting over their petty inheritances. Iwazo, a military man, considered his youngest son Genji to be a monumental failure in every conceivable way, largely because the younger Wood-Aspect preferred to focus his talents on calligraphy and games of Gateway rather than political maneuvering for the sake of his House. Though far from incompetent, Genji lacked ambition and was disinclined to stab anyone he didn't have to. As Tepet Iwazo saw it – such "apathy" was unforgivable.

"Excuse me. You there, blacksmith! Do you know where I can find Heaven-Sent Munno?" My master inquired.

"I don't know who you're talking about." Munno replied. The look on his face said everything. In Munno's eyes, my master was yet another young Dynast, of the same sort that had recently been springing up all over the Hundred Kingdoms like mushrooms after a monsoon. It was no secret that they were all looking for Munno, vainly hoping that he would forge for them another Heaven-Sent Sword.

But what Munno did not know yet was the horrible news that had come all the way from An-Teng. A mad thamaturge, more powerful than any mortal ought to have been, had summoned his old enemy Iyutha again... and now everyone who held stock anywhere in the South was looking for a way to be rid of her. The demon was a force to be reckoned with and clearly, whoever had brought her back into Creation was up to no good.

"Of course you do! Heaven-Sent Munno forged the greatest sword ever made by mortal hands. He used it to slay the demon Iyutha and the bring down the Warlord Phaestus who once ruled these lands with an iron fist. Then he vanished. Retired, some say. I've been told that he lives near here." My master pressed.

"He does." Munno replied.

"And yet you don't know where?" My master paused.

"Munno doesn't like visitors." Munno replied. "I'm sure that you've been told that also."

"I have. And that distresses me because I must find him." My master continued.

"Well, you _won't_." Munno continued working.

"Will you stop that insufferable clanging and at least hear me out?" My master snapped.

Munno set down his hammer as if it were made of glass, but it still made a sound like a brick when it hit his anvil. The butterflies on my master's head scattered and he finally noticed them. He looked painfully embarrassed as he realized that they had obviously been sitting in his hair for some time. I laughed aloud despite myself.

He scowled at me. "Control yourself, Kit!" He ordered.

I bowed very low in my seat, almost kissing my mare's neck so that he would not see that I was still grinning. Munno watched me with some interest. I felt a little uncomfortable twinge that made me wonder if knew that I'd been following his simple, mundane exploits for some time.

I suspected that he might recognize me as Kit Waylay, the no-account mountain guide that he sometimes bumped into when he purchased necessities for his humble farm in Riverbend. If he did remember seeing me before, his powers of perception were truly astounding. Still, I wasn't worried about being identified as Kit - that was the same alias I'd given my current master. But if Munno had any suspicion, however faint, that I was _not_actually the boy that I was currently playing... things might become troublesome.

"I'm listening." Munno said.

My master surveyed Munno's work with genuine interest. He was a connoisseur of good craftsmanship, particularly quality steel. It was one of the reasons that Fate had decided he should be the one to find Munno. "Kit, come hold my horse." He ordered, dismounting.

"Yes, my lord." I meekly obliged. His gelding sniffed my mare and rubbed his nose on my leg. The effect that my master had on butterflies was something akin to the effect that I usually had on horses. They were always convinced that I was something like a hay bale or another horse, meant to be nibbled. Not that I minded. Generally speaking, I prefer the company of animals to that of most people.

My master ignored me, not even looking at my face. As usual, I was beneath his notice. He thought he knew everything, Exalted as he was... but he was too blinded by his own sense of self-importance to realize that the great Heaven-Sent Munno that he and all of his fellow Princes of the Earth had so fervently sought was currently standing right in front of him.

My master sighed heavily, probably guessing that he had best get straight to the point if he expected any sort of answer at all from the man that he was questioning. Without his horse underneath him, my master was significantly shorter than Munno, his shoulders not half as broad. Despite being a Dragonblood, he looked very small and vulnerable in Munno's shadow and indeed he was.

Though my master had studied martial arts like any Dynast, he'd only barely scraped his way through his obligatory physical training. His real talent was for sorcery, which was only to his benefit when he was standing a good distance away from his opponent and behind a very large rock.

"I must find Munno because all of the astrologers say that only Munno can forge another Heaven-Sent Sword." My master explained. "Someone has summoned the demon he once slew and it must be killed again."

"Munno doesn't make swords any more." Munno replied. "And he's too old to kill demons. Besides, astrologers are all liars. They'll tell you anything you want to hear if you pay them enough."

I twitched a little at Munno's callous comment. Personally, I placed a good amount of faith in the stars. Of course, if I'd ever had cause to tell him how I used astrology, I knew he would _never_believe me.

"Hm. So you believe you're immune to Fate? That's very arrogant of you." My master snorted. "Is there no way that I can convince you that I speak the truth? Surely others have already come this way looking for Munno! And as you must know, we Princes of the Earth have a tremendous number of responsibilities! We don't make a habit of traveling so far from civilization on an idle whim! This situation is very serious and getting worse as we speak! Iyutha is ruthless and whoever has turned her loose must be as bad as Phaestus ever was – or even worse."

Munno considered everything that my master had said. I could see the wheels in his head turning very slowly but with tremendous force – like a mill grinding grain to flour. He was a man of few words but they were almost always well-chosen ones.

The only thing about him that I really found infuriating was his stubborn refusal to believe that anything in all of Creation could possibly be attributed to Fate. That bit about astrologers being liars didn't sit particularly well with me either.

"All right." Munno sighed heavily. "Come inside and tell me what's happened. And then we'll see if Munno will help you."

"You won't regret this." My master smiled slightly, perhaps just a little arrogantly. He already thought he'd succeeded where so many others had failed, crediting his own charisma and persistence rather than the bevy of carefully crafted astrological aids that I had set upon the both of us before we came within ten miles of Munno's cabin.

I knew that it was important that Tepet Genji take all of the credit for finding and retrieving Munno and I tried not to get too upset about the fact that I was risking my own hide by using what my other identities knew about Munno to manipulate him in my current guise. The only thing more difficult than deceiving Munno was impressing him – and I had to ensure that my master would succeed in doing both without drawing any attention to myself.

I turned our horses loose where Munno instructed and for a few minutes I actually set to work cleaning our tack as my master had ordered. Later, I knew I'd be scolded for not doing a very good job on the leather, but presently it was more important for me to listen in on my master's conversation with Munno than to pretend to be a good servant.

I hid myself cleverly on the roof of the barn, a vantage point which allowed me a good view of Munno's kitchen through his only window. I could see him and my master seated at his table, a pot of tea between the two of them. It would have been impossible to make out what they were saying or even to read their lips from such a distance... if I were only what I appeared to be.

Of course, neither Munno nor my master suspected that I was anything more than an obnoxious slip of a boy with some meager horse-sense and a good sense of direction.

Among other things, I am a truly exceptional actor.

While I hadn't heard the beginning of Munno's conversation with my master, it wasn't difficult for me to figure out what had happened. Not as stupid as he sometimes appeared to be, Tepet Genji had obviously guessed that Munno was... well, Munno!

"I said I _couldn't_ reforge the sword, not that I _wouldn't_!" Munno protested. "I've been trying to explain and you're not listening! I did _not_forge the Heaven-Sent sword alone~ An old man helped me. I never saw him again and I never knew his name. But he did something to that sword – something I could never duplicate. It was as the stories say, not a thing of this world!"

A familiar chime caught my attention and I turned around just in time to catch the appearance of a little ornate box. It sat in midair and looked so outrageously out of place hovering above Munno's barn that anyone who saw it would have certainly suspected that there was some kind of fae trick involved.

Nothing could have been further from the truth – but explaining that the hovering box was actually the method by which agents of Fate retrieved their orders while they were at work in Creation sounded even more absurd. Most people, like Munno, did not understand how powerful Fate was and would be shocked and horrified to learn that there were hundreds of Gods and those Chosen like me in the employ of the Bureau of Destiny. Worse still, we regularly pretended to be their friends for the sole purpose of manipulating their lives to some degree or another.

I quickly opened my box and seized the scroll inside – new orders from my superiors. Two small objects were also inside... a shard of beautiful iridescent steel and a little vial of something that looked like perfume. The moment I took them out, the box itself vanished.

When I read my new orders, I smiled at first.

My superiors wanted me to get rid of Tepet Genji in the most thoroughly humiliating manner that I could possibly have devised. I was supposed to drug him and leave him in the forest where he would wake up several hours later completely covered in butterflies.

As I kept reading, I felt a knot rise up in my stomach and swallowed a few curse words.

The shard of steel was a piece of Munno's Heaven-Sent Sword and it was "on loan" from the Convention on Deathlords, a powerful organization that I had no desire to run afoul of. After leaving my master to the butterflies, I was to give the sword shard to Munno and then tell him the most terrifying thing I had ever told anyone in my life – the absolute truth about who I was and who I worked for.

But it was the signature on my orders that really caused my heart to start pounding.

I was working for_Oversight_.

Put simply, no one in Heaven knows who or what Oversight is... aside from indisputable proof that even those of us who regularly operated "behind the scenes" of Creation are not really in control of anything at all.

I sat on the roof of Munno's barn for a full ten minutes before it occurred to me that I should probably get down before someone inquired as to how I'd gotten up there. My orders vanished after I had committed them to memory and I put the vial and the shard of the Heaven-Sent sword into my purse.

I'd just started to busy myself combing our horses when my master emerged from Munno's house. He looked extremely cross, which I'd anticipated, and he actually hit me when he saw that I hadn't scrubbed most of the soap off of his saddle. If I'd been as weak as I appeared to be, he would have definitely given me a good bruise. As it was, I had a bit more incentive to leave him for the butterflies.

I waited until my master and I reached the road and then I "remembered" belatedly that I hadn't refilled our water. I ignored Tepet Genji's curses and quickly excused myself to go draw a bucket from Munno's well. When I was sure that I was alone, I emptied the contents of my little vial into my master's waterskin. It didn't smell particularly strong, but I knew better than to doubt the drug's potency. While it must have been very difficult to brew up an undetectable sleeping draught that would knock out a Wood-Aspect, whenever Oversight was involved in something, it was best to do as they requested and trust that Fate was on your side.

I did notice that Munno was following me as I galloped back in the direction of my irate master. He was damned stealthy for being as big as he was. I wondered momentarily what he'd seen and suspected that he'd caught me putting something into Tepet Genji's water. Keeping to the trees, he followed the both of us as we rode, not seeming to tire at all, despite keeping pace with a pair of good horses.

My master berated me for more than twenty minutes before the tonic I'd fed him finally kicked in and he slumped forward mid-sentence, nearly falling off his horse. I caught him and deposited him on the ground, propping him up against a tree where he wouldn't be liable to choke himself to death if whatever I'd given him made him sick. A butterfly almost immediately landed on his nose.

Sometimes being an Agent of Fate really is quite lovely.

Still watching me like a stalking wolf, Munno emerged from tree cover. He was holding a big stick as if it were a nodachi sword, presumably to defend himself.

"He's not dead." I informed him, suspecting that he was probably worried about what I had done to my master. "Just sleeping."

With my orders in mind, I slowly turned around and dropped my Resplendent Destiny. Really, I didn't look any different without it, but the supernatural effect that caused Munno to perceive me as a dirty teenage boy instantly dissipated. Munno had never seen my real face before and I was somewhat curious to see what he would think. It had been a very, very long time since I'd been in Creation as myself and the feeling was liberating. I stood slowly and drew my swords from concealment.

Tepet Genji would have been even greener than usual – green with envy if he had seen the weapons I'd secretly been carrying on my person since our first meeting. I'd taken great pains to hide them well. The twin blades called "Thought" and "Memory" were my treasures, several thousand years old and inherited through a long line of my previous incarnations.

"You're a girl?" Munno blinked in surprise.

"Technically, I'm a woman. That's a girl of a certain age or more." I retorted, a little annoyed by his reaction.

"I won't fight a woman." He put down his stick.

"Oh, don't start with that patronizing patriarchal nonsense! I don't want you to kill me! I just want to see if you're still any good with a blade. Here!" I offered, tossing him one of my own swords.

"I haven't picked up a sword in years." Munno admitted, staring at Memory. I hadn't considered which I was offering him, but when I did notice, it seemed painfully appropriate. And yet he didn't turn down the weapon. I suspected he couldn't endure the sight of something so fine lying on the ground.

"Gods, these swords are heavy! Heavier than solid jade!" He mused, drawing the blade a few inches from its sheath."Good balance though. But you're so small!"

"I'm a lot stronger than I look." I replied, striking at him. He parried my blow with some effort but very good speed. Despite his argument that he would not fight me, he followed through with a decent enough counter. I parried in return.

"So I've noticed." He observed, noticing the I could wield Thought with the ease of a light Tai Chi sword – while he handled Memory in the manner of a broadsword himself. "Who are you?" He pressed.

"Presently? I'm Tepet Genji's servant." I smirked.

"I see. But he's no one of consequence. You, on the other hand... it is you who came looking for me?" Munno hazarded a guess.

"Well, Genji is obviously not going to be killing Iyutha. He thinks he is, but he's no warrior." I remarked, jerking my thumb at the Dragonblood who was still snoring, blissfully unconscious after the cordial that I'd given him. When he woke he'd surely be furious, but by the time he did, there was a good chance that Munno and I would be far enough ahead of him not to care. "Not like you are." I informed Munno.

"I wish I could help you, but I'm not as young as I was. And as I told your master, I did not forge the Heaven-Sent Sword alone. The man who helped me is probably long dead and I don't know why that weapon was able to slay the demon or if it is even possible to make another like it." Munno shook his head heavily.

"You won't even try?" I pressed.

"I don't have the strength to fail." He replied.

"Then don't fail." I replied, reaching into my purse and producing the unusual sliver of steel that had come with my orders from Oversight. Munno clearly recognized it immediately and swore under his breath as he caught it in his hands. He swore again as he looked up and noticed that I was surrounded in a faint aura of blue light.

Munno stared at me, obviously bewildered by what he had just seen. I'd never seen him so completely thrown off guard. Then again, it was a rare day indeed that any mortal got to hear what I was about to say. "My name is Estelle and I am a Chosen of Serenity. I know you don't know what that means yet, but I work for Fate and The Heavens and I've been watching you for a long time. It's really quite complicated. I promise I'll explain everything that I can but basically... I've been sent by Heaven to help you. Forge the sword. Kill the demon. Save the world."

For a long while we stood facing one another in silence... and then Munno did something I had never seen him do.

He smiled.


	2. Chapter 2 - Sam

Sam

"What are you looking for, mister?"

It was the fifth time that Miko had asked me that question, and I still wasn't going to answer it. Now, I won't lie, Nellens Miko was one cute kid. With a button nose like hers and that mop of pale blonde curls, the little demon spawn probably got everything she wanted. Most Dragonblooded parents spoil their offspring, particularly if they're well-bred and likely to become Exalts. Miko was obviously adept at using her six year-old charms to portray herself as the absolute paragon of innocence. Her persistence in questioning me would have been endearing, if I hadn't been acutely aware of the fact that several of her father's personal guard were already looking for me.

I dodged behind a stack of hay bales as I heard footsteps approaching and Miko gave me the sweetest smile she could muster. As number five out of eleven siblings, I knew better than to trust that look. In my experience, kids are only ever really polite if they know it's going to get them something. Miko clearly _knew _that I wasn't supposed to be poking around her father's stables, but she wasn't going to call for the guards until I provided her with some quality entertainment.

She tugged on the hem of my shirt. I'd deliberately "dressed down" for the mission I was on and the cheap cloth I was wearing was particularly nasty and scratchy against my skin. Hot and humid as Lookshy was in the month of Ascending Fire, I couldn't wait to get back into my own clothes. "Oh mister?" Miko called out in a sing-song voice, tugging harder on my shirt. She'd gotten noticeably louder too, but not quite loud enough that the guards would hear her.

_Devious little shit. _I thought to myself.

Miko would Exalt for sure when she came of age, which might help soothe some of the sting that her father, Nellens Satoshi, was currently feeling.

Apparently, Satoshi's eldest son Jon had not only failed to Exalt, but had also gotten himself mixed up in some sort of anarchist business, which was not the kind of thing to get involved in when your father happened to be head of Lookshy's Municipal Security.

As a rule, Lookshy Terrestrials take their police state business pretty seriously. They're not needlessly paranoid, however. Their city _is_ rife with all kinds of dissent and corruption. Lots of folks would like to take over Lookshy, and they all know that the best way to do that is to undermine the government from the inside. See, even after getting hammered by the Scarlet Legion about forty years back, the city's Seventh Legion still maintains a terrifying arsenal of Shogunate Era tech. Even if the Gens were on good terms with the Realm proper, which they_ never_ are... they'd still have an awful lot to worry about being located so dangerously close to the territory claimed by The New Deliberative.

To make a long story short, some of the anti-government folks that Satoshi's prodigal son had made friends were discovered to have ties to the quasi-terrorist, pro-Solar organization Chrysalis. That kind of fallout wasn't something dear old dad could make go away, so poor, hapless Jon was currently walking his way up to the executioner's block where Satoshi would have to order his own kid's head hacked off.

My heart went out to the guy, honestly. But I was still going to rob him.

"I'm looking for a horse, Miko." I explained. "A white horse with one blue eye and a little piece missing out of his right ear. Have you seen a horse like that?"

Miko seemed a bit surprised that I knew her name, but then she remembered that I'd been working as a servant in her father's house for six months. Of course, I hadn't actually been in Lookshy for more than two days, but that wasn't how Miko recalled it. She relaxed slightly, deciding that I wasn't a stranger.

While sometimes I wish I was better looking, being nicely inconspicuous with a honest sort of face is actually a real boon in my line of work. For lack of a prettier way to put it, I'm a particularly low-ranking indentured servant of an organization you've never heard of called The Bureau of Destiny, specifically The Division of Journeys. The gig comes with no shortage of drawbacks but also a few excellent perks. For one, I can easily convince anyone that I am whoever I need to be at any given time. I'm also extremely forgettable, and I knew that when I finished what I'd come to do and rode off into the sunset victorious, Miko would not even remember my face, let alone my name.

Though the Immaculate Order asserts that Terrestrials are the rightful Enlightened Princes of the Earth, there's not a Dragonblood in Creation who can hold a candle to a _Sidereal _Exalt like myself.

"You mean Ronin?" Miko wondered innocently.

It occurred to me belatedly that I should have just asked Miko about the horse Ruvia wanted in the first place. There were probably fifty horses either stabled or turned out all over the Nellens estate, but I didn't doubt that the kid knew all of them by name.

"Yes. Your father asked me to put him back in his stall." I told her.

Miko nodded, believing me as I lied.

I kinda felt like an ass, using a Charm on the kid. But then again, in my line of work, it's really best to treat every mission you're on like it's something that might tear the fabric of reality to shreds. My last "little job" had began on the Blessed Isle, delivering modified reports for an imperial legion. It had ended with five Solars freeing a Primordial in Nexus.

Let me tell you, all of that business was as bad as the reports made it sound and worse. A little over eighteen months later, I'm still not entirely sure what happened... but I've heard tell that working for Oversight is always like that. Most major Conventions (nee Bloated Bureaucratic Entities) in Yu-Shan (Heaven) are crap to work for, but _Oversight_ is really the crème de la crème of Malfean assignments.

If you're assigned to Oversight, you can usually anticipate being right in the middle of some unbelievably devastating, "Five Maidens walk into a bar" type Fatemangle. For a young blood like me with only about seventy-five years in the field, missions like that start out dangerous and skid downhill into 'suicidal' really quickly.

Though I'd never dare fire off my mouth in the proximity of my former Oversight superiors, Himitsu and Whisper, I was personally very glad to be back on the job for Ruvia and The Convention on Roads and Transportation. All I usually had to do for ol' Ruvia was something simple and straightforward, like relocate a horse.

Of course, stealing something valuable without getting caught is _never _simple, but it definitely beats dodging four crazy Solars who think they're stuck in a time machine and a Sidereal-hating construct who doles out Paradox like holiday candy.

Miko considered my request. "I know where Ronin is." She informed me.

"But?" I eyed her suspiciously, aware that there would be a catch.

"I'm not telling!" She grinned wickedly. "Unless you play a game with me!"

"Aw, c'mon, kid!" I groaned. "I really don't have time for games!"

"But I'm so bored!" Miko informed me, whining a way that made it awfully obvious that she considered her own needs to be much more important than anyone else's.

When I let down my guard just a little, I noticed a mischievous spark return to her eyes. Miko was definitely playing me, and the expression on her face made me think of the one time I'd actually met the Immaculate Dragon Mela, the progenitor of all Air-Aspects. I'd stopped into Ayesha Ura's office to drop off some papers and at first I didn't know who Mela was, only that she was obviously more important than Ayesha, which left me with a short list of suspects. My gut reaction upon seeing Mela was that I'd stepped into something I'd be better off not asking about... and so I did the smart thing and excused myself before the dragon could ask my name.

I sighed heavily in defeat. So long as she didn't develop a taste for trouble like her hapless brother Jon, Miko would do her old man proud. "Okay, kiddo. What's your game?"

"Hide and seek!" Miko decided.

"All right! That's a game I like!" I smiled slightly despite myself. "Now why don't you hide first!"

The kid ran off, and I pretended to count. As soon as she was outside the barn, I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. The midday sun glinted off of my bracers, which were made of just about the nicest chestnut-colored leather you've ever laid eyes on and a fair amount of starmetal. Above the small, amber-colored hearthstone on my right wrist sat a tiny, almost indistinguishable spider.

"Alright, buddy." I said to the construct. "Go get that kid."

The spider obediently dropped from my bracer, trailing a tiny, nearly indistinguishable string of yellow Essence. No one looking would have _seen _anything, but of course I could feel where my own Essence went and follow it easily.

Sure, I was cheating. But as I'd informed Satoshi's precocious munchkin, I was also a little bit too busy to be playing games. My orders from Ruvia had been very straightforward. I was to steal Ronin, Nellens Satoshi's prize stallion, tack him up and leave him standing at the west gate of Lookshy.

Of course, I hadn't asked "why". In my line of work, folks who ask "why" always wind up with more to do... and personally, I was really looking forward to going home. I hadn't set foot in my own house in over three years, and even for a Chosen of Journeys some missions are just _way _too long.

I kinda suspected that all of my plants were probably dead, and wondered if my cat had found somewhere else to live.

I followed my spider's trail and picked it up near the koi pond on the west side of the main house as it was beginning to scurry back in my direction with news of what it had found. It informed me that Miko was hiding in the apple orchard and that my real quarry, Ronin, was in the round pen just behind the cider house. It made the most sense to honor my bargain, to get Miko and let her lead me to the horse. If nothing else, playing the kid's game would keep her from bothering anyone.

It was also too early to leave the horse at the gates. A stallion like Ronin can't sit unattended for too long, especially not in a seedy part of town... and my orders specifically stated that Nellens Satoshi was supposed to see his horse at the exact moment that he was ordering the execution of his son.

I really didn't know what Ronin's presence would actually do for Satoshi or poor, dumb Jon, but when it comes to life-or-death situations, perfect timing is essential.

I took my time waltzing through the orchard, marveling at all of the trees which were already covered in small green fruit. Of course, the apples wouldn't be good for eating before early fall, but I was tempted to sneak back and steal a few when they came into season. If the smell was to be believed, the crop was a choice one.

Something came whizzing in the direction of my head and I jumped, moving much faster than I probably should have. My feet actually left the ground and I almost jumped right into _Flowing Mirror of Opposition Technique_ before I realized that I wasn't about to be killed and the projectile was actually a rock-hard little apple.

Though I can wield a sword with reasonable skill if I have to, I prefer to avoid drawing blood whenever possible. In a pinch, I'll go for the nearest stick I can find and turn it into a staff. My martial arts style of choice is Celestial Monkey, which is one of the best styles for someone physically compact and "springy" like me. It focuses on evasion and is looks really impressive, particularly from the perspective of someone who's only ever seen martial arts which don't use Essence at all or only require very little of it. Generally speaking, even a very old Terrestrial master lacks the raw ability to learn any Celestial style.

An astonished little gasp made it obvious to me that my would-be assassin was none other than Miko.

She hopped down form her perch and stared up at me with a very broad grin.

"Found you." I informed her.

"That was _awesome_!" She exclaimed, obviously not caring about her hide and seek game any longer. "Are you an Air-Aspect? My father's an Air-Aspect." She informed me, as if that were something I didn't know.

I decided to downplay the fact that she'd basically caught me jumping in a manner that made it look like I could actually fly.

"You scared me to death!" I told her. "I almost fell right on my back!"

Miko harrumphed at me, like an ornery little horse. She was not convinced.

"We had a deal, Miko! I played your game... now where's that horse?" I put my hands on my hips and gave her "the look". "The look" is one of the few things I remember clearly about my mother, and seldom does it fail to have its intended effect on children.

She sighed heavily and trudged in the direction of the pen my spider had told me about. Sure enough, there was a great big white stallion running in circles, tossing his head and making all kinds of irritated noises, like he was in a great big hurry to be going somewhere he couldn't get to.

Some people might have been a little nervous around a horse like that, who clearly wouldn't have a problem stomping you and breaking your spine. Being a Chosen of Journeys, I didn't look at the horse as a potential man-killer. I looked at him as a potential mode of _transportation_... which made him _mine_.

"Now, I understand that you're really upset about something, Ronin." I informed him. Fate provided me with the saddle and reins I'd been expecting – they were sitting about four feet away near a block of saddle soap and some greasy rags. "But I'm going to ride you, and you're going to be okay with that."

The stallion gave me a weird, sideways look with his one blue eye. He was obviously damned smart and I wondered if there wasn't a touch of something Celestial in his bloodlines somewhere. At any rate, when I held his nose and looked him dead in the eye, he decided that I was okay and took his bit from my hand as gently as a kid's first pony. I saddled him just as easily and hopped right on.

Miko watched me suspiciously. Apparently, she thought that Ronin was a real murderous monster and couldn't comprehend how I'd tamed him so easily.

"Be good, kid!" I ordered her. The sound of footsteps approaching told me it was time to go.

I didn't have to spur Ronin. The minute I kicked the gate open with my toe, that horse took off like a streak of lightning and it was all I could do to keep my seat. He was clearly on a mission, and I was the one along for the ride.

Not that I minded. I'd always enjoyed a good gallop and the horse that I'd been assigned on my last mission had been one suiting my role as a low-ranking Realm messenger. A horse like Ronin was one in a million and sure to turn heads. Keeping up with him tested my _actual _skills as a rider, which are fairly impressive. And by "impressive", I mean that I regularly play polo with Horse Gods and Hunting Goddesses when I'm at home in Yu-Shan.

Despite his insistence on taking the most direct route to the West Gate of the city, I kept Ronin to back roads on the Nellens Estate and in sparsely-populated alleyways as we came into Lookshy proper. I even managed to rein him into a walk before we trampled anyone, though the stallion still pawed, tossed his head, and curled his lip up at me like he thought he was some kind of fire-breathing dragon. There was a massive crowd gathered around the city center and I did not doubt that they were there to witness Jon's execution.

I dismounted from Ronin and slowly backed away from him, leaving the stallion where no one could miss him. A few people gave me odd looks, but Ronin stood stock still in the middle of the road like he was watching something. My mission completed, I should have gotten out of there as quickly as I could.

Of course, because I'm too curious for my own good, I had to see what the damn horse was staring at.

Being several heads shorter than Ronin, the only way I could get a clear look that was to push my way slightly into the crowd. As I'd suspected, Satoshi and the rest of Lookshy's Municipal Security were standing on a wooden platform a few feet away. A couple of sorry-looking miscreants from Chrysalis were standing with ropes around their necks and Satoshi's kid Jon was up in front of the crowd.

There was no mistaking him. Jon looked a lot like his old man, tall with strong features and a shock of white hair, a sign of good Dragon bloodline. Considering that he was about to lose his head, I'd kinda figured the brat would be more scared and maybe even pleading with his father, but he was apparently a real die-hard rebel. Even the scarred Murqai "heretic" who had the symbol of The Unconquered Sun tattooed on his chest didn't look as resolute as Jon did.

Apparently, the kid was about to say something in his own defense.

I was kinda looking forward to hearing whatever it was going to be, but I didn't actually get a chance to listen. A hand seized my shoulder and I whirled around as fast as I could, ready to drop whoever had grabbed me if necessary. My sloppy strike was immediately parried by a feather pen. Hitting that goose quill was like striking solid steel.

"They do say." A familiar voice remarked casually. "That the _pen_ is mightier than the _sword_."

I swore and shook out my hand. The woman standing behind me smirked. She was dressed in a patched, ink-stained green kimono with a pattern of ivy leaves embroidered in black and gold. Her long, golden-blond hair was tied back in a messy bun and she had a tiny pair of round glasses perched on her nose.

Her given name was _S__usurrare Mercis, _which was antiquatedRivertongue and suitably overblown in the manner of many pretentious Merchant Houses. But of course, everyone called her "Whisper".

The first Solar I'd ever met had confessed to me that Whisper reminded him of his history tutor, the first woman he'd decided that he was madly in love with. Although Veritas Ilumio really hates Sidereals, he'd also admitted that he found Whisper "brilliant". I knew that was synonymous with trouble. Being Twilight Caste, if Veritas actually thought someone was "brilliant", that meant they were smart enough to be terrifying by any normal standards.

With two pencils stuck behind each of her ears and a large leather-bound book clutched to her chest, Whisper reminded me very distinctly of a mathematics teacher I'd once had. As she'd lectured our overcrowded class, I'd fantasized about sweeping her off her feet and running away with her to somewhere exotic and exciting.

But unlike any mere mortal who encountered Whisper, when I saw her, I didn't only see her Resplendency. I knew exactly who she was and knew also that if she was in Lookshy, the real madness hadn't even started yet.

"Quiet, Sam." She ordered me before I could say anything at all.

"Yes, ma'am." I replied obediently, as if she were my teacher. Whisper smiled slightly. The thing about Astrology is that even if you're fairly well-versed in a College, someone who's a master of it can still kinda pull its secrets over you. And there is _nobody _in Heaven or anywhere in Creation who understands every aspect of _The Treasure Trove _like Whisper does.

She didn't ask what I was up to. Though I wanted to ask her why she was in Lookshy myself, I didn't dare open my mouth. She'd told me to be quiet, and I was going to behave.

See, there aren't a whole lot of us Sidereals. That's part of the reason we're all overworked like we are. Suffice to say, we usually don't accidentally bump into each other on "routine" field missions in Creation. To make matters worse, Whisper is a pretty heavy hitter in the Gold Faction.

People who meet Whisper for the first time are often surprised that she carries the amount of clout that she does. She tends to get very neurotic and even cries when someone like Jonah or Himitsu gets in her face. Generally, Whisper acts like she's fresh out of training and on her first field mission, which is totally incomprehensible considering that she's more than four hundred years old. Four hundred years old is not ancient for a Sidereal... but that means she's had time enough to master some pretty intimidating stuff.

In fairness, I'm also inclined to obey Whisper because she is "brilliant". With the exception of Naara-O, The God of Secrets, who basically runs The Forbidding Manse of Ivy, I can't think of one person, God or Exalt who knows more obscure lore than Whisper does.

Essentially, Whisper _is _what _The Treasure Trove _makes her appear to be, a permanently frazzled academic. That in itself isn't unusual for a Chosen of Secrets. What _is _unusual about Whisper is that, along with Himitsu, she's one of two Sidereals _permanently _assigned to Oversight.

For most of us, an Oversight job comes along once every fifty to a hundred years, and for the lucky ones, even more rarely. But about a century ago when the first Solars started returning, orders came from "On High" requesting that both the Bronze Faction and the Gold Faction select _one of their best_ to be permanently delivered to "The Convention on Oversight", which was something that no one wanted to admit knowing anything about.

To make matters even more complicated, the two "Oversight Field Supervisors" would be henceforth _forbidden _to take part in Yu-Shan politics, removed from any other Conventions they were on, and even dismissed from Division business – which is the one thing no Sidereal should be able to escape.

Being ostracized to such a degree would be a death sentence for a lot of folks. Put simply, if you don't play games in Heaven, you usually can't get anything done. Even "kids" my age who are just starting their careers usually sit on four or five Conventions, disseminate propaganda for their Faction superiors, muddle through paperwork for their Division, and do "favors" for anyone else who has the right forms, the right letters of recommendation, or the right amount of unspoken clout. But worse than accepting social and political exile from Yu-Shan would be ignoring the orders of the Incarnae themselves, or underestimating the seriousness of their request.

And so the Bronze Faction chose Himitsu, an old, _really _well-connected Chosen of Endings who used to be their boss Kejak's right hand. Himitsu has since taken to his near-permanent exile in Creation like it's the coolest mission he's ever been assigned and is usually regarded as Field Supervisor #1.

In response to Himitsu's selection, the Gold Faction chose Whisper, who was at the time a relatively unknown commodity. Of course, the Bronze Faction leapt right on her like a pack of wolves. It was obvious that they wanted to draw out our boss, Ayesha Ura (who also happens to be the head of my Division), and make her sacrifice one of her elder, more experienced agents.

But then Whisper pulled out a handwritten recommendation.

From _Jupiter_.

Suffice to say, I'm actually more afraid of Whisper than I am of Himitsu. Anyone who sniffles when they're called a dunce and then pulls a Maiden out of their pocket is playing in a game that I don't want to know anything about.

I turned my attention to Jon. Whisper was looking right at him, and I felt something in the pit of my stomach. Thunder rumbled on the horizon and Ronin whinnied.

Satoshi caught a glimpse of his prized stallion pawing near the city gates, but he didn't have the opportunity to say anything. Everyone, even the headsman, was staring at Jon, absolutely transfixed.

"_Until you put these things to right, you're not entitled to boast of the "justice" you dole out! You allow these people to be brought up in the worst possible way, and systematically corrupted from their earliest years. Finally, when they grow up and commit the crimes that they were obviously destined to commit, you start punishing them!"_

Though I hadn't heard him start his speech thanks to Whisper, and though I was still acutely aware of the fact that she was standing right behind me, I found it difficult not to listen to the kid. There was a conviction in his voice that felt very familiar.

"_And all of you who claim to be honest men do the same things you condemn these people for! You kill and rob and sneak around every "law" you make! The aristocracy regularly speak of treason over dinner and yet Municipal Security silences anyone on the street who even asks what we should do about Nexus or the Realm! Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become dangerous!"_

A murmur of dissent rippled through the gathered crowd. It was obvious that Jon _believed _what he was saying, like I believed Mercury guided me wherever the road I was on happened to lead. He could say "_This is wrong_" like I could say "_I'm going to get there_"... and I'm a Chosen of Journeys.

It was as if he _knew _how _right_ he was, how everything he'd said was indisputably true. More than a few fists were raised in support of Jon and for a minute I thought that Satoshi and his men were going to have a riot on their hands.

"It is," Satoshi announced, his tone very grave. "The _responsibility _of those blessed by the Immaculate Dragons to maintain order. We are doing everything we can!"

"To benefit yourselves!" Jon retorted. "_There is a higher court than yours, father! The greatest good for the greatest number of people is the measure of right and wrong! There is no such thing as justice without equality!" _He knelt down before the headsman's block.

"Execute me." He finished. "It will not stop what's already begun."

The headsman moved forward, but Satoshi held him back with one hand. The look on Jon's face changed suddenly. He smiled as if he'd just had a revelation, as if he was looking at something no one else could see.

And then the whole world exploded with light.

I'd heard stories, but I'd never actually been within spitting distance of a Solar Exaltation before. The power of the Unconquered Sun loosened at such close range really drove home exactly why everyone in Yu-Shan is so afraid of the big guy. Though the Maidens and Luna also play in The Games of Divinity, they're all more accessible than The Unconquered Sun is and they're even occasionally seen loitering around Yu-Shan occasionally like normal Gods. It had been almost a century since I'd Exalted myself and in all that time I'd never seen the Unconquered Sun, or even seen his power at work... except in the hands of Solars, who have a tendency to throw it around like it's theirs and they can just do whatever they want with it.

It took me a minute to realize what had actually happened, and by the time I could see clearly myself, everybody and their brother was screaming "Anathema" and running for the hills. The Municipal Security forces just about got trampled by the crowd and the Chrysalis thugs who'd been lined up for execution were freed, presumably by one of their compatriots who'd been hiding nearby.

Like a man possessed, which is what I presumed he was, Jon blazed right through the crowd and vaulted right onto Ronin's back as if it were something he'd done a thousand times. A fiery gold and white blur of horse and anima tore through the city gates with half a dozen Dragonbloods in hot pursuit.

I considered my orders and groaned. No one would believe that I _hadn't _known what would happen! Though I'd been working for my usual Convention, no amount of careful politicking would make what I had done look like anything but a Gold Faction grab for power. Helping Solars _directly_, unless one was specifically _ordered _to, was a major political faux pas.

Sure, I was nominally part of the Gold Faction myself, but that was mostly because Ayesha Ura is head of the Division of Journeys, which is the one organization that I can't get out of. Any Chosen of Mercury will tell you that the boss lady is easier to work for when she doesn't suspect you of being a spy for her number one enemy, Kejak.

While I might have agreed with Ayesha a few decades ago that the Solars didn't really deserve what had been done to them, and that subverting the will of the Incarnae had been a serious mistake, my firsthand experience with The Well of Udr had left me convinced that even the noblest-seeming Solars were horrifically dangerous. If the little I'd seen of Jon so far was any indication at all, he was going to be _lots _of trouble now that he had _power _sufficientto back up his convictions.

When the chaos on the streets began to die down, or at least spread elsewhere in the city... the first thing I noticed was that Whisper was gone.

I heaved a sigh of relief and then felt every hair on the back of my neck prickle as I heard a familiar chime sound. A little ornate box had appeared hovering in the air right next to my head.

Knowing that it wouldn't go away until I paid attention to it, I opened my mailbox and took out my new orders. As I'd suspected from the moment Jon had vaulted onto Ronin's back, I was back on the job for Oversight. I didn't have to guess that the brand-new Zenith Caste was my assignment. The message I'd received concerning what had just happened was not at all enlightening or in any way helpful. In fact, it consisted of only three worlds.

_Steal another horse._

I sighed in defeat and gazed skyward. Mercury didn't respond to my silent plea for aid, but I could imagine that if she had deigned to say anything to me, she would have told me to get moving.

I had a Solar to catch.


	3. Chapter 3 - Tetsuo

Tetsuo

"_Now you listen_!" I slammed the bottle down on the table and Chandan jumped. Sure, I could tell that being so "overt" about my covert dealings made the little God nervous, but that was what I was counting on.

Chandan was trying to screw me, and I wanted to make sure he understood _exactly_ who it was that he was messing with.

"This is how it works!" I informed him. "If I have the quintessence to pay, you get me in! I don't want to hear any of this crap about a 'no gate' list! I may have to sneak into Yu-Shan, Chandan, but that doesn't mean I don't _know _anyone up there!"

That was an understatement on my part, and Chandan obviously knew it. Any "mere mortal" who could pay the _Celo Viatori _to smuggle him into Yu-Shan had to have considerable resources or powerful friends. I had both. Chandan _was_ going to help me. He obviously wanted the quintessence I was offering, and I was sure that he knew I'd just take my offer to another corrupt God, like Dorian Gray or Madame Marthacine if he persisted in refusing. I was going to get into Yu-Shan one way or another, and clearly Chandan was beginning to understand his own position.

He got very quiet for a moment, staring at the bottle between us. "All right. But we're keeping this above board, do you understand? It's a new rule for all Secret Travelers." He explained, literally translating the name _Celo Viatori _from Rivertongue into Old Realm. "I need to know who you're going to see."

"No, you don't." I replied. I preferred the name _Viatori_ myself. It made the whole thing sound more mysterious and romantic.

The little God wrinkled his nose, obviously annoyed by my unwillingness to cooperate. "What is it with you and secrets, mortal? Who do you think you are, _Dorobo _himself?"

I noticed that he used my nickname, but not without respect. Word was apparently getting around. Granted, having clout in _The Bureau of Seasons_ wasn't the same as manipulating _The Commision of Abstract Matters and Celestial Concerns_, but being a mere God-blood and not a God myself, I found it very gratifying to have an edge over any divinity.

Of course, there were very few entities in Creation who _knew_ that I _was_ Dorobo and that was probably for the best. It did annoy me somewhat that I had to barter quintessence with Gods who technically worked for me, but part of any good conspiracy is plausible deniability.

"I like secrets. Secrets are good, wouldn't you agree?" My smirk was just slightly malicious, and Chandan clearly caught my meaning.

Our dealings concluded, Chandan seized the quintessence I'd put on the table and stuffed it somewhere inside of himself. Being the God of Sandalwood Trees, Chandan appeared vaguely humanoid, but I knew from experience that he could "grow" his limbs and change his shape at will. That kind of thing came in handy for one of the _Celo Viatori. _See, there are two kinds of crooks in Heaven. The small fry, like Chandan smuggle Celestial drugs and magitech into Creation, traffic in hot quintessence, and help sneak mortals into Yu-Shan. The bigger fish, the ones who are committing all sorts of Severity Four and Five offenses, don't deal in money.

They deal in secrets.

See, everybody has secrets... and most folks, Gods or mortals, don't want their dirty laundry out in the open. If you know a secret that no one else knows, you can use it to get basically anything you want.

It was the first lesson I'd learned from my father and one that I'd taken to heart.

I had a lot of respect for my old man, which was the chief reason I wouldn't tell Chandan who it was that paid the _Celo Viatori _for my passage into Yu-Shan. My father is a fairly powerful God who _could _conceivably just visit me in Creation and save himself a lot of quintessence, if it weren't for the fact that at the time of my birth, the Five Maidens all got together and collectively informed him that he was never supposed to see me again. Suffice to say, when I was ten years old, my mother died and my father decided to risk Jupiter's ire by paying to have me smuggled into Yu-Shan.

That was fifteen years ago. The whole _Celo Viatori _operation was a real circus back then. Just getting one little kid through a Calibration Gate took six or seven bribes. I don't remember much of what happened because it was all at night and no one told me what was going on. These days, of course, the _Celo Viatori_ are much better at what they do, and word has it that they can even get Deathknights or Fae into the Jade Pleasure Dome... for the right price.

I'm not implying that something like that that's been done. I'm just suggesting that it _could_ be.

I can't describe what it was like, actually meeting my father for the first time. I'd had very little experience with Gods and though I was quick enough to catch the whispers that followed me everywhere I went, I didn't really understand what it meant to be "God-Blooded".

I soon learned that because of my father, I'd been born with Essence that I instinctively manipulated. I'd inherited a portion of his divine aspect, which allowed me to know things I had no way of knowing and to mask my own presence to the point where I could sneak up on anyone, even a Dragonblood. The power I possessed was even evident in my physical appearance. People did not like my eyes and avoided looking directly at me. They wondered why I always seemed windblown, even when I took the utmost care to press my clothing and comb my hair.

My father explained everything I had ever wondered about, and in his presence I finally began to understand myself. He expressed his genuine sympathies for the loss of my mother. Though I had every reason to hate the God who had never before shown any interest in me, I listened to his reasons for abandoning my mother and I and I found that I could not argue with him. Under his tutelage, I learned very quickly not to underestimate how much of a political minefield Yu-Shan could be.

In order to survive as my father's son, there was a lot that I needed to learn. My father arranged for me to have a Sidereal sifu who would train me in martial arts and thamaturgy. She came to live with me in Sijan, and the tiny house I'd shared with my mother quickly became a suspicious "haunted" mansion as my father arranged for a dojo to be built and a library to be added. Scores of little Gods who also worked for my father moved in to oversee my training, and it was necessary that accommodations be provided for them also. My father even added a beautiful stone courtyard suitable for practicing actual sorcery, should I ever prove capable of learning it.

I proved to be an exceptional student, excelling in martial arts, astrology, and history, which were my sifu's favorite subjects. I managed to learn enough thamaturgy to find work in Sijan, not that I needed the money. I simply enjoyed the opportunity to test my skills against Gods and spirits rather than "mere mortals" who had very little appreciation for what I was doing. I wanted to push my own limitations as far as I could and even toyed with learning sorcery, but I quickly discovered that even the rudimentary spells exhausted all of my Essence. And so I began using my natural gifts in a way that seemed... more _efficient_ to me.

I became a criminal.

If my father was disappointed, he never said anything. He continually sent letters expressing how pleased he was with my progress and I would practically tear the doors off my sifu's little mailbox whenever it appeared. I would take out each letter individually and slowly peel away the green wax seal of The Forbidding Manse of Ivy. My father's handwriting would dance across the page just long enough for me to read his message... and then the beautiful cream paper would be blank. At first I thought that receiving "secret messages" from my father meant that we had a special relationship.

Gradually, I began to understand that he could not leave any evidence that he was involved in my life. No matter how hard I worked, I would never have the one thing I truly desired, which was a place with him in Yu-Shan.

Some of my neighbors had always regarded me as a kind of minor Anathema, and a few of the rich Realm kids who lived near my house used to call me "Kowai" which basically means "Scary Kid". And that's really saying something, because Sijan is sometimes called "The City of Tombs". It has ten times more dead residents than living ones and is effectively ruled over by the Mortician's Order. But even in a place where people don't fear death, they do fear for their own reputations.

After I began training under my sifu, I came to understand that I could actually pry secrets from people by impressing my own will on them. Anyone who'd lived in the city long enough still called me "_Kowai_" when they thought I wasn't close enough to hear, but by the time I was sixteen I'd become "_Dorobo"... _"The Secret Thief".

As my reputation around Sijan began to grow, my father sent the _Celo Viatori_ to bring me to him for the second time. I had just turned seventeen and was no longer intimidated by the petty Gods who did most of the risky work for the organization. In fact, once they smuggled me through the Calibration Gate into Yu-Shan, I purposefully snuck away from them, intent on proving to my father that I could stand on my own in Heaven.

Fortunately, my sifu found me before I could get into too much trouble.

When I arrived at my father's manse, he admonished me for being so reckless. I apologized as honestly as I could and then told him of a particularly interesting secret that I'd gleaned from a God while waiting for a dragon boat. He seemed surprised to learn that my secret-stealing ability was just as effective on Gods as it was on mere mortals. And then he asked me if I would be willing to spy on the God of Sijan for him.

Though I understood that such a job was bound to be dangerous, and that my father was only offering it to me in order to keep me from causing more trouble for him in Yu-Shan, I could not resist the golden opportunity. Before I'd run away from their clutches, I'd seen weakness in the _Celo Viatori _and I knew that if I had the chance to work on manipulating them for awhile, I could easily coerce my way into Yu-Shan whenever I liked. I could also get my hands on certain things that would be very valuable in Creation.

A year later, as I was overseeing my first major _Celo Viatori _smuggling operation... the God of Sijan discovered that I'd been spying on him. He promptly caused the catacombs under my house to collapse, destroying most of my worldly possessions. Then he offered a reward to anyone living, dead, or divine who would bring him my head on a platter.

Of course, knowing that the God of Sijan expected me to run straight to whoever I'd been working for in Yu-Shan, I decided to pull a fast one over him and hide myself in the last place any God of the Dead would expect me to go. I called in some favors and went to the Underworld instead.

Stygia is really not a bad town, all things considered. I discovered very quickly that I could manipulate myself into a comfortable position by stealing secrets and doing a little smuggling just as would have done in Sijan. Still, living in the Underworld takes a fairly serious toll on any Essence-user, and so I was eventually obliged to move my base of operations to a seedy little tavern on the very edges of a shadowland not far from Thorns. The place was called "Aerope's Mask" after its former proprietress who'd met a particularly grisly end about four years before I came into the business. It was never exactly comfortable, but that didn't bother me. The people who came looking for my help weren't interested in making friends, and neither was I.

I watched Chandan scurry off with his ill-gotten quintessence and then went up to the bar, pouring myself a stiff drink. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon which meant that my only regular would soon make his nightly appearance.

"Evenin', Tetsuo." Brock yawned. The grizzled old mercenary had been a very big man when he was alive and if anything, being partially transparent made him look even bigger. He set his huge spectral warhammer on the floor and motioned for me to pour him something strong.

Brock is the only ghost I've ever met who can actually drink alcohol outside of the Underworld. I've no idea how he does it, but somehow when he lifts up a mug and guzzles it down, the liquor doesn't spill all over the floor. It disappears like he's actually got it in his stomach and stranger still, I swear it actually gets him drunk.

"So, you ready to go pick up your package?" Brock asked, glancing in my direction.

"Let's do this." I agreed. I'd already packed for the trip ahead of us and one of the local Gods who owed me a favor would watch over Aerope's Mask while Brock and I were gone. I wanted the time I spent in Stygia to be as short as possible. The longer I remained in the Underworld, the less Essence I'd have at my disposal and I didn't doubt that I'd need to pull out a few of my better tricks before the job I'd set up was finished.

Brock knew that I was smuggling something for Seven Seasons Widow. He knew that my business was illegal, and that it made a lot of money and that was good enough for him. I liked that he didn't ask too many questions, and because Brock was one of the few entities I'd ever met who never tried to pry information out of me, I granted him the same courtesy. All I really knew about him was that in life, he'd been a mercenary, and in death that was still his profession. I knew that he'd been killed somewhere between thirty and fifty years ago by a demon that had laid waste to An-Teng and that he liked working for me.

I actually knew more about The Mask of Winters than I did about Brock... which was I suspected was part of the reason I enjoyed the ghost's company so much. He was as much of a mystery to me as I was to him.

Brock must have guessed that I was in a good mood because I couldn't stop myself from smiling.

Of course, what he didn't know was that "The Secret Thief" was about to pull off a heist so spectacular that not even the Incarnae themselves could have dreamt it up.

Seven Seasons Widow, a Deathknight in the service of The Mask of Winters, was going to meet me in Stygia's District of Bone Lanterns. She would entrust me with a single gold coin which I would smuggle into Yu-Shan and hide in the office of Lytek, the God of Exaltation.

I'd already bribed or threatened everyone I needed to, and I wasn't even in the red yet... which meant that if I didn't make any mistakes, I would walk away even wealthier and more notorious than I already was. Foolish little Chandan had been the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place. All I had to do was put the coin into his pocket before he walked into Lytek's office... and somehow convince him to leave behind his coat when he walked out. I'd already arranged for there to be an "accident" involving a pot of hot jasmine tea and a suitable "distraction" out on the streets.

Though Seven Seasons Widow didn't think I was smart enough to catch onto her master's plan, I knew exactly what The Mask of Winters was up to. He was trying to steal himself a Solar.

To be fair, I knew perfectly well that I was treading on dangerous ground. Deathlords, as a rule, really shouldn't be trusted and getting involved with Solars is just not good business.

But the beauty of the whole plan was in its simplicity. When an Exalt died, part of their soul returned to Lytek's great big vat in Yu-Shan where it waited for its larger half to sweep through the Underworld and be reincarnated. There was a very brief moment as an Exaltation left Lytek's hands and returned to its host when it was actually _not _in a body and vulnerable. Of course I knew that when he caught that little spark of divinity like a butterfly in a net, The Mask of Winters planned to torture the Exaltation and use it to make himself another Deathknight... but I'd had plenty of dealings with Deathknights while in Stygia and on the whole, I figured they were less dangerous than most Solars were.

In fairness, my experience with Solars was very limited. I'd only actually met one, a Zenith Caste called Windswept Rhapsody who'd broken a chair over my head in a bar fight. But if she was any kind of indication of what "Solar Anathema" were like, I decided that I'd rather face any number of Deathknights or Sidereals. At least in the Underworld and Yu-Shan, the really powerful Exalts had certain rules that they had to follow and superiors they had to obey.

Bureaucracy, the lifeblood of my business, made people corrupt. Corrupt people had secrets.

And as I believe I've already mentioned, I like secrets.

Our trip to Stygia was as uneventful as any foray into the Underworld ever is. Well-acquainted with all of the twists, turns, and dangers along the way, Brock hacked through a forest of carnivorous bone trees and bashed a few persistent undead to pieces in his role as my "bodyguard". Though I was more than capable of taking care of myself, I had no intention of wasting energy or Essence that I couldn't easily regain. My weapon of choice is a particularly nasty antique funerary knife that I salvaged from the ruins of my old home in Sijan, something that was passed down through generations of my mother's family. I keep it hidden in a specially designed sheath that tucks under my left arm. Virtually anyone frisking me will miss it... and that's why I avoid drawing it unless I absolutely have to.

The minute anyone sees you draw a secret blade, it's no secret anymore.

Brock and I rode down into the District of Bone Lanterns and headed for _The Painted Queen_. The ghost who owned the place, Aldus LeStrange, was an old friend of Brock's and never charged us when we came to stay. In return, I always made sure to bring him a little something to sate his expensive "habit". Though I don't usually deal in drugs, there's really no harm in giving a dead man something that might kill him.

I was more tired than I wanted to admit when we arrived and checked in with Aldus. I decided to lay down for a few minutes, not that it helped. I could already feel the deep drain of the Underworld stealing all of my energy and willpower. Though I appreciated the importance of being well-connected in Stygia, I would have much rather been in Yu-Shan.

Of course, wanting to be in Yu-Shan was nothing new for me.

Some of the entities that I've worked for have commented that they don't understand why the Celestial Lions are so picky about who and what can enter the Heavenly City. I understand perfectly. Like every other mortal who's ever set foot in Yu-Shan, every time I visit, I want to stay.

The fact that my father is my only living relative makes it even more irritating that I can't simply enter or leave as I'd like to.

After about an hour of pretending to rest, I staggered downstairs and decided to join Brock at the bar. _The Painted Queen _was usually crowded and as I drifted through the sea of patrons, I could feel my "secret sense" tingling.

I passed a portly ghost with an enormous nose, a pretty little wisp of a spirit clinging to his arm.

_Cheats on her husband_.

A surly-looking bastard sitting at the end of the bar eyed me suspiciously.

_Tried to kill his brother._

I sat down next to Brock and immediately got a new one from Aldus. Apparently the proprietor of _The Painted Queen_ had found one of his dead guests "deader than usual" and instead of reporting the crime to the authorities, he'd 'disposed' of the corpse himself.

_Not 'the first time' he'd made a body disappear._

See, one of the drawbacks of my exceptional education was that I became very _aware _of my "God" side to the point where I don't actually have to burn Essence to strip secrets from people. All I have to do is stand in their general vicinity, and anything particularly awful that they've never told anyone just kind of flows right into me.

It's probably not surprising that I don't have many friends.

Still, I'd actually gotten used to ignoring most of the loud, nasty secrets... the ones about drugs and disreputable habits that so many people work hard to conceal.

Some things, however, still caught my attention. There was a man sitting next to me at the bar, a living man, dressed in red with an eye-patch over his right eye and the scar from a burn down the whole right side of his face. He looked like a real nasty piece of work, just as most living mercenaries who can tolerate the Underworld usually are. I would have mistaken him for a sellsword in a heartbeat, but the secret that I involuntarily gleaned from him told a very different story.

_Sidereal._

Agents from Heaven, as a rule, were not popular in Stygia, but most of the dead understood that it wasn't wise to mess with Celestial Exalts. Sidereals are right up there with Solars and Lunars when it comes to pound-for-pound Essence-slinging and even in the Underworld, they stood a distinct possibility of doing something devastating before running out of juice.

A woman came to the bar to sit with the Sidereal. She was very good-looking and I would have considered trying to pick her up if I hadn't immediately drawn a secret from her.

_Sidereal._

Using the mirror behind the bar, I tried to get a good look at their eyes. In the Underworld, it was extremely unlikely that either of the two would be wasting the Essence necessary to disguise themselves, so their eyes would tell me what Caste they were. Chosen of Serenity have soothing, cerulean blue eyes. Chosen of Journeys tend to be yellow like a cat's and just as curious. Chosen of Secrets, like my old sifu, have intense green eyes even more piercing than my own.

The man's eyes were most definitely red, which told me that he was a Chosen of Battles, and his companion's eyes were either blue or purple, but I was betting on the latter... which would make _her _a Chosen of Endings.

That kind of team-up gave me the distinct impression that whatever mission the two were on probably involved killing someone. The dried blood on the Chosen of Battle's knuckles and the almost indistinguishable tears in his companion's clothing confirmed my suspicions.

I didn't look in their direction. I just listened.

"This Secret Traveler thing is turning out to be worse than Kejak anticipated." The woman whispered. "Himitsu made it sound like some sort of Gold Faction plot, but now I'm beginning to think that this goes straight to the top. You've seen the list of who they've implicated, Jonah. It keeps growing!"

"I know!" Jonah rolled his eyes. "But what are _we _supposed to do? Himitsu's already tossed The Green Lady to the wolves! And if Fakheru thinks he can get Nara-O..." He trailed off into silence.

That was when I lost my composure. Brock glanced over his shoulder, maybe wondering why I was standing in the middle of the room staring like a fool.

"Excuse me." I turned to the nearest Sidereal, the sour-looking Chosen of Battles. "But did you say Nara-O is being audited?"

"Who the hell are you?" He frowned.

"It's just an innocent question!" I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "I mean, isn't the God of Secrets very powerful?"

"You really should mind your own business." His companion informed me. I could tell that the Sidereals didn't want to talk and so I didn't bother attempting to continue the conversation I'd sparked.

Doing my best to look annoyed, I stomped out the back door of the bar. Then, despite the Essence that I knew it would cost, I used my _other _trick. I made myself invisible, slipped back inside and stood directly behind the two Sidereals. Neither of them noticed me.

"Yeah, Severity Five. It's a pretty serious list of charges. Some people are even saying that Nara-O arranged for certain threads to be cut from The Loom of Fate, but I personally don't think the pattern spiders would stand for that." The Chosen of Battles muttered.

A Severity Five audit was serious business and I had no idea _how _my sources had failed to warn me of something so important. I didn't particularly care what charges The Green Lady was going up on. I was well-aware of her reputation in the Underworld and figured that like most Sidereals, she probably deserved to get mined for starmetal. But if the _Celo Viatori _were about to get hammered... I did not doubt that my own name was going to come up.

_A lot._

I waited until the two Sidereals finished their drinks and then grabbed Brock's sleeve. It's not easy to tug a guy Brock's size anywhere, and especially not when he happens to be a ghost who's only sort-of substantial and virtually immune to pain.

I'd completely forgotten that I was invisible and when I lost my concentration and suddenly reappeared, several of _The Painted Queen_'_s _patrons spilled their drinks and one mercenary rolled right out of his chair.

_Deathly afraid of spiders_ was what I got from him when he almost fell on me.

Brock was quick to react when he saw me, however. The two of us went straight out the back door.

"Shit!" I cursed, turning to Brock. I'd contained my emotions for as long as I could and I was absolutely bursting at the seams. "Damnit! How could I have been so careless, so stupid?"

"Tetsuo?" Brock eyed me warily.

"There were two Sidereals at the bar! I overheard their conversation and... I'm in trouble, Brock." I sighed in defeat. "There's a massive celestial _audit _taking place in Heaven right now, which doesn't actually affect me because I'm not a God or a Sidereal but... everyone I've been working with is probably going down." I took a deep breath. "This whole thing is _off_!" I decided. "We're going home _now_!"

"You think you can just back out of a deal with a Deathknight?" He raised his eyebrow at me. "The Widow might kill you." He added, as if that was something I didn't know.

"The hell with her, and screw The Mask of Winters too!" I retorted. "I need to find Chandan and get to Yu-Shan right away! There might still be something I can do!"

"You want to get in the middle of an Audit in Heaven? Aren't you usually trying to stay out of that kind of trouble?" Brock frowned.

I hesitated.

"I don't want to know what this is about, do I?" Brock observed.

"No, you probably don't. But because you've been working for me, and because this also involves the Underworld, there's a chance that you might catch some of the fallout." I admitted. "As soon as we get out of Stygia, you should call in any favors that you can. You might have to run."

"I think you're overreacting." Brock informed me.

"You think so?" I smiled slightly despite myself.

"What are you grinning at?" Brock demanded.

"Brock, I don't even know where to start!" I admitted. "This is something I've wanted to tell someone my whole life and if the situation wasn't as serious as I know it is, I don't think I'd have the courage to tell you now. The audit I heard those Sidereals whispering about... they can't even_ imagine _how bad it's going to be! The _Celo Viatori _is a smuggling ring. _The _smuggling ring, I should say. Anything that you want moved from the Underworld into Heaven or from Heaven into Creation... the _Viatori_ carry it. _Everything _they do is forbidden by Heaven for one reason or another and a lot of the things that have happened recently with those Solars taking over Nexus and..." I sighed in defeat. "We were involved in it all."

"We?" Brock raised his eyebrow at me.

"I run the _Celo Viatori_. Not officially, but..."

He didn't let me finish.

"You? _You_ run the Secret Travelers?" Brock set down his warhammer. I wasn't as surprised as I might have been to discover that he'd actually heard of the _Celo Viatori_. Brock was a whole lot smarter than most people gave him credit for, which was part of why he'd been such a successful mercenary in life. Of course, you can be clever and tough... and still lose to a yozi, which was how my pal had met his end. "You're clever, Tetsuo, but you're just a Godblood. Mostly mortal, I reckon?"

I nodded.

"So tell me how a Godblood controls a smuggling ring of Gods, demons, and Deathlords?" Brock demanded.

"Secrets." I replied.

"The kind of secrets that are now going to get you killed?" He prompted.

"That was always a possibility. It's not actually me that I'm worried about." I admitted.

"That's surprisingly unselfish, coming from the great "Dorobo"." Brock put his hands on his hips. I noted that he referred to me by my nickname and briefly wondered just how much he actually knew that I hadn't pried out of him. I wasn't in the habit of letting people keep their secrets, but I liked Brock and so I'd been sloppy enough to actually trust him. "Since when have you ever been worried about anyone but yourself?"

"I don't _try_ to be a bastard!" I protested. "I'm just working with what I've got! Using what I know! It's what my father would do."

"Ah." Brock observed. He knew my weakness if anyone did. When we'd first met, we'd shared a strange and very long heart-to-heart over the burning corpse of a goblin. Suffice to say, it's a long story, but it more or less explains why my only friend is a mercenary with no last name who's been dead for longer than I've been alive. "You're worried that they'll get your father? Audit him?"

Like most everyone, Brock knew that my father was a God. But of course, _which_ God was a secret that I'd kept to myself and never told a soul. Apart from my childhood sifu, I somewhat doubted that anyone in Creation, Heaven, or the Underworld actually knew whose son I was.

"They've _already _got him. And they will _destroy _him if I can't prove that I'm responsible for this whole mess." I told Brock. There was no sense in swearing him to silence. Everyone was going to know soon enough, and somehow I actually felt empowered by confessing my very best secret. "Brock, my father is Nara-O."


	4. Chapter 4 - Estelle

Estelle 2

Since it was necessary for us to depart before Genji woke and Munno refused to take my former master's horse, we hurried back to his farm. He packed us enough food for several days and saddled his mule. Then we rode to the home his nearest neighbor, Hiram Lao. The old man was clearly confused by Munno's sudden desire to leave his whole world behind, but I quickly manufactured a story about an emergency involving a distant relative and Lao decided it would be "no trouble at all" to look after Munno's fields and animals for a few weeks.

In truth, we would be gone much longer than that... if we returned at all, but I doubted the old man would mind. I'd seen Lao's three sons sloshing around in his rice paddy and throwing handfuls of mud at one another like a pack of wild baboons more than once before. The boys could clearly use some extra work.

I could tell as we headed back to the main road that Munno was reconsidering the wisdom of his spur-of-the-moment decision to come with me. Of course, I had told him that I was in the employ of Heaven, but Munno had worked very hard to hide himself where many thousands of would-be "apprentices" could not hope to find him. After wielding the Heaven Sent Sword against Iyutha so many years ago, he had started off traveling incessantly, but doing so had only added to his legend.

In the end, Munno had paid the very greatest price for his desire to be a hero, and nothing anyone could do would ever change that. His wife and my son, the two greatest treasures of his life, had both been dead for more than twenty years.

As we made our way down from the mountains and into the open country, I told Munno silly stories I'd heard in my travels and answered the questions he posed about me and our mission. He was quiet for several hours. Then we reached the river that snaked through the valley and led all the way to Great Forks. Since we'd already passed three forks in the road, I suspected we were well beyond Genji's reach. He could spur his horse as fast as it would go and he would still have no way of knowing where we'd gone left and where we'd gone right.

As we stopped to water our animals, Munno sat down in the grass on the riverbank and watched the midday sun on the surface of the blue water.

"Where are we going?" Munno asked.

I realized belatedly that I hadn't actually told him.

"To be honest, I don't know yet. Whoever it is that controls Iyutha is somewhere in the Scavenger Lands, but he or she is keeping that demon on a very long leash." I admitted. "Iyutha has burned through An-Tang once already and she's been sighted flying over both Chiarascuro and Lookshy."

"That is a _very _long leash." Munno agreed. "You don't know anything more?"

"I'll know more when it becomes important." I told him. He said nothing, though it was obvious from the expression on his face that he did not like my answer. "For now, we'll head West. Great Forks is the closest major city to here. And since you don't know how the Heaven-Sent sword was originally forged, we're going to have to track down some of the best craftsmen in Creation and ask them."

"I have the shard in here." Munno nodded tapped the medicine pouch he wore around his neck. It was a good luck charm that an old friend of his had made for him. Like most of Munno's friends, Brock was long dead. I imagined that he would have approved of the quest that Munno had accepted. From what Munno had told me of him, I knew that Brock had been a connoisseur of adventure stories and would have approved of the last smoky pipe dreams of a hero long past his prime. "But as I told Tepet Genji, I did not see the original blade forged. I may not be any help at all."

I sighed heavily. "Munno, I've received orders from one of the most important Conventions of the Bureau of Destiny. You _will _help. Now I can't say how, and I can't say when... but you must trust that Heaven is watching you for a reason."

"One girl and old mercenary against a demon?" Munno laughed slightly.

"Hey! I know how I look, but I'm no young pup!" I informed him. "I get paid _very _well for what I do, and I'm never assigned missions that aren't important!"

Of course, I didn't tell Munno that sometimes Fate was capricious, and a "First Priority" Oversight job could be something as seemingly insignificant as stealing a horse.

The part about my salary was true, however... and it was also true that most of my assignments were of the kind that Munno would consider "important" himself. My favorite kind of work was physically challenging and dangerous, and my superiors knew what I preferred. My sifu, Jonah, often lamented that I wasn't a Chosen of Battles like he was. He'd always appreciated my skill with a blade and since I'd become a full-fledged agent of Fate myself, he often asked me to do favors for him. I could seldom bring myself to refuse.

Unfortunately, the last "little favor" I'd done for Jonah had gotten me roped into a mission for Oversight at his side. It had also involved me working for Himitsu, Field Supervisor Number One, which was something that made my skin crawl. Though Himitsu had been a pillar of the Division of Endings for longer than I'd been alive, he was also a complete lunatic. He'd withheld important information and even backstabbed Jonah and myself who were members of his own Faction. I'd heard someone say once that Himitsu's only friend in Heaven or Creation was Adamant Quill, The Emissary of Nexus, an Eclipse Caste Solar he'd been assigned to watch more than a century ago.

And Quill had recently let a _Primordial_ loose in his city.

Working for Himitsu was a like working for a fae lord, which was something I was intimately familiar with and did not like to remember. Fortunately, even though I was back on the job for Oversight, there was a chance that the madman hadn't specifically requested me. No one knew who gave the orders for Oversight, not even Field Supervisors One and Two. In fairness, Field Supervisor Two wasn't anything like Himitsu. Despite the fact that she was the sweetheart of the Gold Faction, Whisper wasn't likely to send me on something madcap and potentially fatal. In fact, she'd probably give me all of tools I needed to do my job with very little prodding. She was a helluva savant, that I had to admit. But Whisper had a tendency to whine and whimper for no reason, which was something I really couldn't tolerate. More importantly, like _every_ Chosen of Secrets... she also liked to hide things.

"Estelle?" Munno interrupted my thoughts. He'd climbed back into the saddle and was looking down on me as if he expected it was time for both of us to start riding again.

I mounted my horse and we continued along the river.

Munno had obviously been considering his words for some time before he spoke. "I blindfolded myself while the sword was being finished." He explained. "The man who made it told me to. I was only a boy, fifteen years old when I killed Iyutha. These days the bards say that I jumped so high that it looked as though I'd been blessed by the Dragons." He smiled slightly. "Perhaps it was a mercy that I never Exalted. My life has been eventful enough these past thirty-odd years. With a Dragon's grace, who knows what sort of trouble I might have gotten into?"

I smiled slightly despite myself. "I thought the same thing once." I admitted.

"How old are you?" Munno wondered. He seemed embarrassed after he spoke, as if he'd remembered that it was a somewhat impertinent question to ask a woman.

"Two-hundred and forty-six." I replied, enjoying the incredulous expression on Munno's face. "But that's _nothing _for a Sidereal! They still consider me a young hellion around the Cerulean Lute. Of course, that's not liable to change. You see, most Sidereals are found when they're very young and raised in Yu-Shan. I was almost thirty when they finally caught me living in a Freehold not far from Halta. I was taken by the fae as a child. It's a bit hard to imagine now, but I honestly thought I was a goblin myself. That didn't go over well within the Bureau. Certain people thought I could never be trained. That I was too "tainted" to be a Chosen of Serenity."

Munno considered what I'd told him. He seemed more disturbed hearing about my childhood than he had been when I'd revealed myself to be an agent of Heaven.

"And I do understand why. Let me tell you about this fae lord I once knew." I continued. "Every ten years, he'd go to the village near his Freehold and demand a pair of children, usually twins. You see, his hobby was to Shape one child and leave the other one "plain". And when he'd finished torturing and transforming his poor canvas, he'd force her to stand beside her for twin so that he could decide whether he'd "improved" upon the original or not. If he thought that he had, he'd kill the "plain" child. And if he didn't like his own work, he'd kill the one that he Shaped."

Munno stared at me. "Great Dragons, how were you ever able to find peace?"

"Oh, I saw worse before I was taken to Yu-Shan. I fought in several wars." I finished.

Munno said nothing. He only nodded. War was something he understood.

I decided to change the subject. "As you might imagine, I caused a whole lot of misery for a lot of folks when I first came to Heaven. I even punched the Goddess Lwaxana once. Being the Goddess of the Written Word, she got the worst kind of revenge on me. I still can't read much faster than a snail can crawl and sometimes the letters look backwards and... well, let's just say it's pretty embarrassing for a Sidereal." I laughed slightly, mostly to break the silence.

We rode on for many more miles before I could bring myself to say anything else. I didn't feel it would be right to continue spilling all of my own secrets, but Munno had never been one to talk much. I tried to focus on the road and clear my mind, but I'm no Chosen of Journeys and I can only really find serenity when I'm able to sit somewhere comfortable and enjoy a nice cup of tea.

The sun was beginning to go down and I spied a copse of trees not far ahead that looked like a nice place to set up camp. I reined my horse so that Munno could catch up with me and pointed. "Let's camp over there."

"Mm." Munno agreed.

We dismounted and let our animals drink from the river. Warm as it was, I set only a little fire so that we could share a pot of tea. The summer night was gloriously clear and the moon was only a thin sliver, which made the sky look like a sheet of black velvet. I still remembered the first time I'd seen the stars. I'd always known that they were up there, but when the Chosen of Battles who would later become my sifu had rescued me from the Green Lord's freehold and explained that Fate was written in the night sky, I'd actually _looked_ at them. And the first constellation he'd named for me had been The Sword.

I pointed it out to Munno, who nodded. "That's The Sword. I'm very partial to those stars."

He said nothing, not even a little grunt of agreement which was most of the conversation I got out of him. Clearly, his thoughts were elsewhere.

We finished our tea, and my little fire burned down to embers. Towards the north, I could see a faint flickering of emerald green aurora. It was still too early for the winter lights. What was over there?

It was further off than we could travel in several days, so I supposed it didn't actually matter.

"I have a question." Munno announced suddenly.

"Go ahead." I replied.

"If you are an Agent of Heaven and an Exalt like a Dragonblood, how do you fit into the Perfected Hierarchy?" He asked.

I almost spit out my tea. "Uh..."

Words wouldn't come to me. With what we might be facing, I expected that Munno might need all the faith he had. I didn't know why it hadn't occurred to me before to ask him what Gods he favored. I'd assumed that he was not very religious, like most mercenaries I knew. It wouldn't have surprised me if I had discovered that he paid some sort of homage to a God of strength or swordsmanship or victory. But I certainly hadn't pegged him for a believer in Immaculate philosophy.

See, the Immaculate Order is actually an arm of the Bronze Faction, a political tool of distraction masquerading as "the one true faith". It serves its purpose in keeping most of Creation obedient and complacent under the rule of the Realm, but it's basically a load of bunk. The real Heaven bears very little resemblance to the Heaven described in Tenzin Zhou's _On Immaculate Philosophy. _If an Immaculate monk ever made it to Yu-Shan, they'd probably believe they'd been cast into the bowels of Malfeas.

More importantly, although the Immaculate Dragons have a lot of push and pull in Heaven, they are _not_, nor will ever be_, _on par with the Incarnae themselves.

"We're like the Gods." I explained, avoiding his question a little bit. I gestured to Thought and Memory. My two blades were set against the tree behind me and they looked particularly striking in the firelight. "You remember how heavy my blades were, don't you?"

Munno nodded.

"They're heavy because they're edged in Starmetal. It's nasty. Very efficient for killing stuff that's nominally outside of Fate – like Fae. Starmetal is made out of dead Gods and Sidereals like me who step out of line." I paused. "So if I don't want to get myself in a position where I'll be forged into a nice carafe or something like that, I have to do what I'm told. I respect the Dragons, Munno, don't get me wrong... but one of the perks of being mortal is that you get to _choose_ your own path. I may be five times your age, but you have more freedom than I've ever had in my life."

"So who is it that you serve?" He asked me.

"That's a complicated question. I serve the Convention I'm currently working for. I serve my Division, The Cerulean Lute. I serve my... superiors." I caught myself before I said 'Faction'. That would have sounded too political, and I still thought it was best to let Munno believe that Heaven was a great and benevolent force of good rather than the corrupt, impressively dysfunctional bureaucracy it actually was.

"And I serve Venus, the Maiden of Serenity." I finished. "Although I probably should have said that I serve her _first_. Venus is my mistress. Through me, she can act in Creation. All the power that I have is hers, I only borrow it."

"Oh." Munno observed. "So are you..."

"Am I what?" I raised an eyebrow his direction. "_Anathema_?"

"That wasn't what I was going to say." Munno protested, though the expression on his face told me that it definitely was.

"No, I'm not." I told him.

"I have heard something like what you've just said before." Munno admitted. "It was a woman who told me that she was the messenger of a God. And that her God used her to make his will known throughout the world."

"Crazy people will say anything! Most Gods can't be bothered to answer half the prayers that mortals send to them." I scoffed. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"This woman wasn't mad." Munno replied. "She was Anathema."

"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

I had very limited experience with Solars and none of it good. Generally, I'd discovered that Lunars were easy enough to deal with if you focused on the concrete sorts of things that tended to motivate them – such as territory and the condition of the land. The fact that Munno had met a Solar and never mentioned it before worried me.

"A Blasphemer." Munno continued.

I grimaced, but tried to hide my expression of distaste. Of all Solars, the Zenith Caste were my least favorite to deal with. Though they rarely matched the Dawn Caste for brawn and tactical planning or the Twilight Caste for intellect and crafting ability, they made a terrifying, indelible impression on everyone they met. Out of the sixty that the Unconquered Sun had forged for the Primordial War, there were presently twenty of them running a muck. All of the reports filed said the same thing. Every Zenith Caste was a supremely irrational idealist, convinced that all of Creation needed to be remade in a very grand, 'total paradigm shift' sense.

Since the Bronze Faction maintains its hold in Yu-Shan largely through maintaining the status quo, I decided that it would be best to convince Munno that the Solar he'd met was not someone he ought to be emulating.

"Have you ever met an Anathema before?" Munno asked. "They're very powerful." He informed me, as if that was something I didn't know. "And perhaps it is wrong of me to say this, but... while I understand _why _the Immaculate Order says that they are demons, sometimes I wonder if they are mistaken. I think that they are... something else."

"Sent by Heaven?" I hazarded a guess, hoping he wasn't actually enthralled.

"I don't think I would go that far." Munno laughed uneasily. "But I do have some experience with demons, as you know. I also have an understanding of _power_, and how it is often abused. If you had the power to kill a thousand demons with one blow of your sword... wouldn't that make you very dangerous to the average mortal?"

"Beyond dangerous." I replied.

"And if you were so dangerous, some people might suggest that Creation would be better off if you were destroyed. Because of what you might do." He continued.

"Of course!" I agreed.

"But then... what happens when the demons that you could have easily killed suddenly emerge? Everyone calls for a great hero. But if all the great heroes have been slain because they are too dangerous, then what do you do?" He pressed.

"Settle for little heroes?" I replied. "Or _retired_ones?" I gestured to him.

Munno sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

Our journey down from the mountains must have been sped by Mercury herself. We ran into no trouble of any kind along the way and six days later, Munno and I arrived in Great Forks. We found ourselves a place to stay sufficiently far from both the Imperial Quarter of the city, which Munno suggested we avoid, and the opium dens which I had no desire to be close to myself. Though The Cerulean Lute is sometimes degraded as the Bureau of Destiny's "house of ill repute", the effects of opium and most other drugs reminded me all too clearly of the pervasive, mind-destroying powers of the Fae. Why anyone would spend good money solely to ravage themselves is beyond my understanding.

Settled in at _The Lucky Lady_ early in the day, we proceeded to go about our mission, interviewing every smith who would have a look at our shard of The Heaven Sent sword. Of course, we didn't alert anyone to what it actually was... we simply asked their opinions as to what they thought the metal was composed of and if they felt they could duplicate the unusual alloy.

No one volunteered for the challenge, and at the end of the day we were waiting outside the tower of a crotchety local thamaturge who'd spent the last several hours blessing the warts off of one of her clients.

She proved to be no help either, and exhausted but not yet thoroughly disillusioned, we decided to return to our accommodations for a meal and some well-deserved sleep.

There was a bard sitting on the bar when we stepped into the common room, a Western woman wearing a boyish cap and a short blue jacket with musical notes embroidered all over it. Her attire was colorful if cheap, and gave the impression of a career performer who worried more about earning quick passage to the next town than keeping warm on cold winter nights.

Munno gave the girl a long, contemplative look as we sat down and waited for our supper. It surprised me to see that he was so interested in the very young bard, but maybe I'd made a mistake in thinking that he was too old to give a damn about a well-built, charismatic little piece of tail.

Being a Chosen of Serenity, I'm pretty good at spotting a man or woman who gives out certain kinds of favors freely. It was pretty typical behavior for a bard, and considering how attractive the girl was, I suspected that she probably earned more in the sack than on the stage.

The girl produced a beautiful antique mandolin out of a carpet bag and her fingers raced across the strings. The sound the instrument produced was nothing short of extraordinary. I reevaluated my assessment of her ability immediately.

_Maybe she was a real musician after all._

"Ahem." The bard cleared her throat. "I don't know about all of you, but since I've been in this town I've been hearing mention of a _name_ that I haven't heard in a long, long while! Heaven-Sent Munno!"

There was a murmur of approval from the gathered crowd. The song had been a popular one when Munno was still in his prime, and evidentially with Iyutha's return it was gaining momentum again.

Munno blanched. I elbowed him and he composed himself.

The bard took a long swig of someone else's ale and stood up right on the bar. In fairness, _The Lucky Lady _didn't have much of a stage, but the bard was positively shameless, knocking over glasses and making herself the center of attention as if she were the greatest soprano ever to grace the stage of the An-Tang Opera. Clearly, she thought she was a _very _important person.

And then, just when I'd made up my mind to dislike her as a matter of principle, the bard began to play.

**_Young Munno to slay a demon is gone,  
In the ranks of death you will find him;  
His father's sword he has girded on,  
And the Heavens rise up behind him!  
"Have no fear!" Young Munno swore,  
Though a demon has been set free!  
One sword, at least, shall stand guard,  
And no fiend will pass through me!"_**

**_Young Munno rode for many miles;_**

**_Traveling far from his home._**

**_And with his blade a legend wrought;_**

**_Which has come to stand alone. _**

**_Young Munno came upon the sorcerer;_**

**_And they battled, blade and will.  
"Send back the fiend you've summoned!" swore he;  
"Or rest assured, I will!"_**

**_With a sharp cold crack Munno's sword failed;_**

**_And twas broken clean in two._**

**_The sorcerer dead but the demon still free;_**

**_Munno's work was far from through._**

**_In the dark of the night a smith appeared,_**

**"_Look not upon my work!" warned he._**

**_Young Munno did as he was bid._**

**_And when dawn broke, he was first to see._**

**_The Heaven-Sent Sword of beauty,_**

**_With its blade of crystal white,_**

**_Through it flowed the moon and stars,_**

**_and all the majesty of the night._**

**_The Heaven-Sent Sword in glory bound;_**

**_For a demon prince to slay!_**

**_In the hands of a boy its spirit matched;_**

**_And Young Munno won the day!_**

**_Young Munno to slay a demon is gone,  
In the ranks of death you will find him;  
The Heaven-Sent Sword he has girded on,  
And The Sun rises up behind him!_**

The sound of the applause when she finished was almost deafening, and the bard had just launched into a wild rendition of _The Goblin's Ball _that was attracting an audience from across the street.

The girl _was _as good as she thought she was... and that was saying something. A bard of such skill could have doubtless won a comfortable position as the pet of some wealthy merchant or Dynast. But from the way she kissed one of her admirers, I suspected that she performed in pubs like _The Lucky Lady _because there was a certain visceral authenticity to them. Anyone would have praised the bard's skill and clapped politely, but only the illiterate hostler who'd had a few too many drinks would be brought to tears by the effervescent _joy _that she created.

I felt more humbled than I wanted to admit. Clearly, Venus had meant for me to take a lesson about judging a book by its cover. Because I disliked the way that Munno had looked at the young woman, I'd assumed she was a common tramp and undeserving of his respect. How had I misread the situation so terribly?

I wasn't sure, but being piss-poor at what should have been my preserve was nothing new for me. Very often, I feel like a Chosen of Battles masquerading as a Joybringer.

Munno offered me his hand and I blinked in surprise.

"You want to dance?" I stared at him.

"You don't?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

I took a long drink of my slightly lukewarm ale and grinned, leaping to my feet.

Though I couldn't imagine Munno dancing alone in his little cottage with only his animals for company, he was very light on his feet and managed to avoid stomping my toes when I stumbled twice.

Then again, there probably wasn't a mercenary anywhere in Creation who couldn't manage the steps to _The Goblin's Ball_. It was the first song that many bards learned and sometimes the only dancing tune they knew.

But our bard was a virtuoso if I'd ever heard one. She had begun playing _Rufty Tufty _and there wasn't a soul in the common room who wasn't shoving tables out of the way to make room for a more rowdy swing. Munno gave me a good spin into the arms of the drunk hostler who somehow managed to send me over to a bespectacled little merchant and then to a big, broad woman who was dancing the man's part on the end of the line. Eventually I made it back to Munno again, which was something of a relief.

Considering my orders from Oversight, I didn't want to let him out of my sight for more than a heartbeat. It wasn't that I doubted he could handle himself in the face of danger... it was that part of me still worried that Himitsu might be making an appearance soon.

_Rufty Tufty _became _Luck Be A Lady _as a boy with a flute and two raggedy street buskers joined our bard up on the bar, swinging their feet and playing with gusto.

The barman was pouring drinks as fast as he could and his kitchen boy was throwing buckets full of cracked corn on the floor to keep everyone from slipping in the huge puddles of beer and wine.

It was as festive as the first night of Calibration, and I almost didn't notice when four big men in the lamellar armor shoved their way through the front door.

Munno saw them first. He tugged sharply on my sleeve and I stopped mid-turn. Two more soldiers entered _The Lady Sailor_, followed by a man in a Talonlord's uniform who looked like a Earth-Aspect Dragonblood. The insignia on his cloak said that he was a member of Dragonlord Takamori Saito's Fangs of Heaven, a fairly well-known and well-organized Wyld Hunt.

The bard stopped playing abruptly, but the street musicians picked up the tempo and the revelry continued as if nothing was amiss. I read the situation pretty quickly myself. Apparently our talented little songstress was in one great big heap of trouble.

She grabbed her meager belongings and bolted for the back door, and when the men moved to follow her, Munno stepped in front of them. "What seems to be the problem, sir?" He asked innocently.

"Get out of the way, you stupid old man!" The Talonlord cursed incoherently in High Realm. He took a swing at Munno and seemed surprised when he missed.

Munno had stepped deftly to the side and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, not that it did him any good. The bard was gone and the Dragonblood looked quite upset.

He eyed us both suspiciously. "Arrest these two!" He ordered his men.

"On what charge?" I demanded, my hands on my hips.

"Aiding and abetting a known Anathema." The Talonlord replied coldly.

"Anathema?" I gagged involuntarily.

"That _was _her? But Dragons, she still looks so young!" Munno exclaimed, obviously not considering that he couldn't have possibly said anything _worse_ in front of several officers of the local Wyld Hunt.

The Talonlord rapped his fist down hard on the bar and the street musicians stopped playing. Two of his soldiers came forward and unraveled a wanted poster. It was an expert likeness of the woman who'd just been entertaining all of us, and when I saw the name on the bottom of the paper, I almost bolted for the door myself.

_Windswept Rhapsody. Blasphemer._

Though I hadn't run afoul of her during the whole Nexus debacle, I remembered very clearly that my first orders from Oversight had contained a short list of Solars to be avoided at all costs, and that the name _'Windswept Rhapsody'_ had been very near to the top of that list.

"If any of you have any information concerning this Anathema, it is absolutely imperative that you bring it forward right now!" He ordered.

Not a soul moved.

"Dragons-forsaken backsliding heretics!" The Talonlord snorted, turning on one heel and stomping away.

I smiled at Munno as sweetly as I could, wincing slightly as one of the Fangs of Heaven tied my wrists around my back and took my swords. In such close quarters, resistance would surely lead to some innocent bystander getting killed.

Munno followed suit and surrendered himself. The Talonlord and his men marched us out of _The Lady Sailor _and in the direction of their camp. When the opportunity presented itself, I kicked Munno in the shins.

"What was that for?" He hissed.

"Not telling me you suspected something sooner!" I retorted.

"So how do you propose we get out of this?" Munno wondered.

"Easy." I replied. "The Fangs of Heaven take us to their leader. We tell him the truth, that we didn't know who she really was... and then, as further proof of our innocence, we tell him who you are and what you're trying to do. And we've got the shard of the sword and all of those smiths we talked to earlier for proof."

It was obvious that Munno did not like the last part of my plan at all. "There will be a parade." He informed me with distaste. "There's_ always_ a parade."

"Looks like you're officially out of retirement, hero." I winked.

Of course, Munno did not dignify my little jab with a response.


	5. Chapter 5 - Tetsuo

Tetsuo

"Nexus." Dorian Gray took a long drag off of his opium pipe and blew a smoke ring in my face. Knowing that he wanted me to flinch, I didn't. When Brock and I had made it back to Aerope's Mask, I hadn't been pleased to discover that Chandan had taken the quintessence and fled back to Yu-Shan. There was no way I could recall him either, because I'd purposefully kept him as clean as possible so that I could use him for the Stygian coin job.

Fortunately, my longtime accomplice, Dorian Gray, had heard that the_ Celo Viatori _were in the hot seat and so he'd come directly to me. We sat together in the middle of the common room of my tavern which was technically open for business, but as per usual, completely empty. Dorian smoked, I drank, and Brock watched the door as the three of us deliberated over our next move.

Dorian was up on a Severity Three offense himself, but I did not doubt that he would walk away from his audit unscathed as he had many times before. What we couldn't let anyone know was that Nexus's former God of Bureaucratic Corruption was presently eking by on what little he still received from his "reformed" city and the quintessence I paid him for his dealings on behalf of the _Celo Viatori_.

If anything, Dorian was starting to become the go-to-God of the Secret Travelers. His new preserve had already affected his physical appearance. When I'd first met the God more than a decade ago, he'd looked like an overstuffed Guild merchant. He'd since traded his velvet robes and rings for basic black working attire and a vicious long blade expertly concealed inside his cane. I noticed with amusement that his cufflinks were embossed with symbol of Jupiter, Maiden of Secrets.

"I like Nexus." I said. I'd been there a time or three in the past and all of my previous ventures had turned out very profitable. The city was probably the biggest bureaucracy outside of Yu-Shan and its underbelly was rife with rotten secrets I could exploit.

"You used to like Nexus." Dorian corrected me. "So did I."

"Aw, c'mon old man!" I sighed. "I don't think it's as bad as you claim! No mortal or God could scrub the ol' River Harlot completely clean! I bet she's still go her nasty panties stashed somewhere I can find em'!"

"You, Dorobo." He wagged a finger at me. "Have _no_ idea what Solars are capable of!"

"Well, one did break a chair over my head!" I reminded him.

"And I warned you about interfering with Chrysalis, didn't I? You and I are _thieves_. We like the system how it is... because we can exploit it. Chrysalis is full of _revolutionaries_. They want to tear the whole system down and build it back up again so that_ no one _can exploit it. Do you understand the difference?" He asked, casually fiddling with his pipe.

"Forty stitches and a concussion made that pretty clear to me. But that whole business was_ years_ ago, Dorian!" I reminded him. "And we turned a profit, didn't we?"

"Mm." A noncommittal response from him. It didn't matter if he admitted it or not. I knew I was right.

"You know, I never thought that The Emissary would let them do it." Dorian admitted. "But apparently he's run off somewhere in the Deep Wyld and those other four have spent the past year taking out all of the trash... and I do mean all of it. The Harlot as we knew her is dead, Dorobo. And her replacement is as frigid as an Immaculate nun."

I considered. "But you just said I should go to Nexus. I'm assuming you know something?"

"I do." Dorian replied. "And it's going to cost you."

"At a time like this?" I glared at him. "Do you want me to kick you into the frying pan, old man? Because right now we are both dancing on the edge of it!"

Dorian snorted. "You may run the _Celo Viatori_, Dorobo, but you're not a God! A celestial audit can't touch you!"

"But anyone that this audit _can _touch is perfectly capable of having me killed! And if I'm _killed_, that's it for me! No amount of prayers will bring me back!" I reminded him. "There _are_ drawbacks to being mortal, old man!"

That seemed to sober him up slightly. "It is very easy to forget, sometimes, that you aren't one of us." Dorian remarked.

I smirked. I liked to hear that kind of thing from him. See, Dorian doesn't care for "mortals" much... and so when he says that talking to me is like talking to another God, what he means is that he likes me.

"Look, Dorobo." Dorian sighed. "I'm not trying to be unreasonable, but you know better than anyone that I can't work for free. In this case, what I need you to do for me... isn't any different than what you need to do for yourself. If you've got to get the resources to bribe your way into Yu-Shan without tapping one of your middle men, there's only one woman who can help you. And she's in Nexus."

"A woman?" I observed. It was a well-known fact that Dorian collected the virtue of rich women like some men collected fine wines.

"Before you ask, _no_, I haven't bedded her." He snorted. "The bitch is unbreakable!"

"But everyone has a _secret!_" I smiled slightly, beginning to understand what he wanted me to do.

Dorian reached into his doublet and produced a piece of folded white paper. "It's a letter of introduction from one of her existing clients." He explained. "You'll need it in order to get in to see her."

I stared at the black seal on the paper and slowly ran my fingers across the fine silver ribbon. It had been a very long time since I'd seen such a letter. Dorian must have known that I would immediately recognize the insignia of the Mortician's Order of Sijan, the city of my birth.

"The woman you want to see is Anastacia Commissa. She's from Sijan, as you might have guessed, and she's the only heir to the Commissa Marbles fortune. She specializes in constructing "lasting monuments of unparalleled grandeur" for the arrogant and especially wealthy. As I'm told, she does as brisk a business in Stygia as she does in Sijan. The sole reason she's living up on Sentinel Hill in Nexus is that it puts her closer to her quarry. Dear ol' da has been on his deathbed for five years and will doubtless soon be consigned to his lavish crypt, but he does want his _princess _married off first, so that might be something you can use. Miss Commissa is, without a doubt, the most eligible, wealthiest, young heiress in the Scavenger Lands. But she is also a manipulative, venomous two-faced _snake_... so watch your step!"

"I think I can handle one little rich girl." I replied.

Dorian considered my response. "She's going to eat you alive." He informed me.

I glared at him and seized his pipe, taking a very small drag of celestial opium. The drug was horrifically addictive and I didn't want to form a habit, but just a tiny bit would soothe my rattled nerves. I fought the urge to take a little more and Dorian went back to smoking. As much as I'd like to sleep off the mess I was in, I couldn't afford to have a foggy head if some new trouble emerged before I made it to Miss Commissa.

"And spit out the bones." Dorian continued.

Clearly, he was trying to get a rise out of me. I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. "All the same, this is something I have to do!" I sighed.

Dorian smiled slightly and began to gather up his things, putting out his pipe and preparing to discorporate. "Whoever your father is." He remarked. "He raised a good kid."

Of course, by saying that, what Dorian meant was that I was a devious little crook... but I took that as a complement.

The God vanished.

"So, we're going to Nexus?" Brock observed. We could stick to the shadowlands most of the way there, which would allow him to ride with me even during the day. After I'd come clean with my pal back in Stygia, Brock had come to the surprising conclusion that he was safer sticking with me than trying to conceal all evidence of our past association.

Of course, Brock claiming that he would be "safer" with me was an outright lie... but I appreciated the fact that he didn't want to leave me alone, and so I didn't call him on it.

Sometimes I think that if I wasn't so sentimental, I'd be better at my chosen profession than I am.

"When are we leaving?" He asked.

"Now." I replied. We didn't have a whole lot of time to get ourselves north. Usually, it took about two weeks to get from Lookshy to Nexus, which meant three weeks from Aerope's Mask. But there was another reason I'd first hired Brock.

"You want me to call my horse?" He prompted. It wasn't something he cared to do. A good mercenary, Brock didn't like using "things on loan" from one of his employers to help out another... and usually I wouldn't ask him to. But Brock's horse was the only thing I could think of that would solve our problem of "too much distance" and "not enough time".

As it was, I didn't say yes or no. I knew Brock understood the urgency of the situation and wasn't about to argue with me.

We walked a few miles from my business into the Thorns shadowland and right about when I started to feel the drag of the Underworld, Brock produced a small ebony whistle from his pocket and blew on it twice. The sound it made couldn't be heard by mortal ears, but all of the carrion crows that were perched in the trees around us scattered, cawing in distress.

A fine black horse came trotting out of the shadows to greet him. Her name was Maat, and though she never spoke, I knew better than to mistake her for an ordinary animal. Maat was one of the legendary Afran Al-khayl, the "border horses" of Ligier, the Green Sun of Malfeas. What Brock had done to gain custody of such a mount was something I didn't want to speculate on... but Maat was an excellent ace to have up our sleeves. In any place that was between Creation and somewhere else, such as a shadowland or a bordermarch, she traveled as if physical distance were an inconsequential thing.

Maat appeared as she always did, already tacked up in fine blood-colored leather. The gold and green insignia on her bit proclaimed that she was from the stables of a yozi Brock called "Lord Khaaj".

Someday, I'd probably have to deal with him. But I hoped that wouldn't happen too soon.

The_ Al-khayl _let Brock mount, but barred her wolflike teeth at me when I climbed up behind him.

"Take it easy, Maat." Brock soothed. The demon horse made a sound like a scalded cat and I could smell sulfur on her breath. Then she composed herself, decided that she would do as Brock asked of her, and we were off.

Two days later, Brock and I arrived on the outskirts of Nexus. He dismissed Maat in a small bordermarch not far from the city, a lingering relic of the Wyld explosion that had occurred over the Firewander District a little over a year ago... and since it was still dark, we walked the last mile together.

When the sun finally cleared the horizon, Brock faded off for the day and I caught my first glimpse of the "new" Nexus.

I stared. I couldn't help myself. Of course, I knew from rumors that whatever the Solars had done in Nexus had caused a First Age city to be restored in Creation, but the _Celo Viatori _had been involved in the whole business strictly behind the scenes. Since Nexus was Dorian's city and he knew it far better than I did, my partner in crime had handled virtually everything from the beginning. All I'd done was inconvenience several Gods who were making trouble for our employer, The Emissary... and smuggled him a certain number of things from Heaven which he paid dearly for. I never met the man personally and didn't know until after our business concluded that he was actually an Eclipse Caste Solar.

Belatedly, I wished I'd paid a little more attention to the whole affair. The city in front of me did not look like the Nexus I remembered.

It _looked_ like Yu-Shan. Beautiful spires of white and gold marble rose high above fields of rice as green as jade and the Gray River, formerly infamous for the refuse that had flowed down it, no longer seemed deserving of its name. The city was surrounded by an impressive stone wall with three massive gates, one facing in each of the cardinal directions. An artifact ship whizzed through the air.

There were two lion-men standing guard at the gates, and a great many people jostling to get into the city. As I came up into the crowd, I stood with my hands folded behind my back and bided my time, soaking up a flurry of secrets and hoping for something interesting I could use to my advantage. Finally, I decided that the letter Dorian had given me was my best bet. When it was finally my turn to approach the guards and declare my business, I simply waved my letter with the seal of the Mortician's Order and the lion-men let me pass, although not without giving me a very suspicious look and a warning to be on my "best" behavior at all times.

I smiled slightly as I passed one of the surly guardian lions and learned that he was the one to be bribed if something needed to get past his compatriots. Nexus really _had _become Yu-Shan in miniature! The whole place was positively Celestial!

I caught a ride on "The Whispering Serpent", the local lightning rail and headed into the Cinnabar District to find myself a change of clothes. I didn't want to stink like the Underworld and demon horse when I met with Miss Commissa, and so I used the last of my presently available funds to purchase a room for the whole week, not that I suspected that I would actually need it so long.

I found myself a nice green coat with silver buttons, a good pair of boots and a new leather satchel that I could use to stash any contraband I happened to acquire. I knew better than to leave important things behind in my room, no matter how much money I paid for a bed. I passed a jeweler's shop in Glassmaker's Row and decided to splurge on one last little luxury, a pair of cufflinks like the ones I'd seen Dorian wearing, with the Seal of Jupiter on them.

Though not particularly religious, thanks to my upbringing, the mystique that surrounded the Five Maidens had always made them seem interesting to me. I knew precious little about Jupiter, not that anyone knew more. The Maiden of Secrets was my father's superior, obviously, and as phenomenally powerful as only one of the Incarnae could ever hope to be. Still, the fact that her business was essentially the same as my own made me feel as though we inherently understood one another, despite the fact that we'd never actually met.

It wasn't difficult for me to find the Commissa mansion. Of all the lavish estates on Sentinel Hill, it was the one which looked most like a mausoleum. The columns which stood in front of the house were made of gorgeous copper-veined marble and the stairs were made out of a ruddy orange stone that was almost more impressive. The garden was similarly beautiful, filled with marble sculptures including a fountain made to look like a dancing dryad and a statue of a man in cloak and cowl who reminded me somewhat of my father. There were flowers of all kinds, especially white Sijanese funerary lilies. Climbing ivy had devoured most of the mansion's exterior brickwork and made me think of the one time I'd actually seen the headquarters of the Division of Secrets in Yu-Shan. The Forbidding Manse of Ivy was a particularly impressive place, and Miss Commissa's residence was obviously taking an example from it. I wondered if she knew.

Still, it would reflect poorly upon me if I wasted too much time loitering outside and didn't state my business. I approached the greenish brass doors and knocked twice.

A manservant answered my summons and gave me a peculiar look.

"I'm here to see your mistress." I informed him, waving my letter from the Mortician's Order.

"The mistress isn't accepting new clients at this time." The servant replied.

"I'll be very brief." I promised. "I've traveled all the way from Sijan, you must understand."

"Others have come all the way from the Blessed Isle." He informed me, nearly shutting the door on my foot.

"Listen, you wretch!" I hissed, seizing his shirt sleeve. "You let me in or I'll make sure your mistress finds out where all of her silver has gone!"

The servant gaped at me like a dying fish. He didn't know how to react to the fact that I knew his very worst secret, the thing that he'd never told anyone.

"How did you..." He stammered. Then he saw my eyes. When I'd lost my temper for a moment, my very carefully combed hair had come loose from the ribbon I'd tied it with and one of the tails of my shirt had come untucked. My pretenses of respectability dropped, I did not doubt that I looked as I felt... like a desperate man on the verge of doing something very stupid.

The servant ushered me into the house. The interior was no less impressive than the exterior had been and the entry way was dominated by a curling mahogany staircase and a marble mosiac in the shape of a compass rose. Framed maps showing every corner of Creation lined the walls of both the first and second floor and the ceiling above my head showed the constellations of the night sky.

I'd expected something very different from a spoiled little heiress, but clearly Miss Commissa was a woman of exquisite, if expensive, tastes.

The servant led me up to the second floor and down a long corridor lined with portraits of every head of the Commissa family going back four hundred years, suits of armor that had been polished more times than they had ever been worn, and a luxurious southern rug that made me want to kick my boots off and lie down on the floor. At the end of the hall, I could hear the sounds of metal against stone.

The servant knocked on the double doors. "Mistress, there's someone here to see you." He announced.

"Send him away!" A woman's voice retorted. She sounded older than I'd expected, and a bit more authoritative. It occurred to me belatedly that Dorian had never said whether Miss Commissa was sixteen or seventy. I'd only assumed because he was interested in her that she was young and impressionable.

"I'm afraid he's... quite insistent." The servant replied.

"Fine, send him in!" She sighed. "And fetch me a cup of tea, would you?"

The servant opened the doors, bowed into the room and then scurried back down the hall as if he couldn't get away from me fast enough. I noticed that the sounds of work had stopped. The room that I'd entered was filled with sunlight and dominated by an unfinished silvery marble sculpture of one of the Immaculate Dragons. Stonecutter's tools were lovingly laid out on tables covered in white linen.

The mistress of the house stood with her hands on her hips and stared at me critically. She about thirty years old and dressed in a workman's apron, breeches, no shoes and a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her curly auburn hair made her look just as windblown as I did and her eyes were two bottomless pools of iridescent, emerald green.

I immediately reached out with my mind, hoping to glean a secret from her, and came back with absolutely nothing at all. Of course, I knew that didn't mean she was perfectly honest... only that she was more guarded than most people were and not prone to stewing over the kinds of things she hoped no one would ever learn.

Despite the fact that she was covered in marble dust and sweat, I decided immediately that Miss Anastacia Commissa was the most beautiful and intriguing woman I'd ever met.

Words failed me. I only bowed politely and passed her my letter of introduction. Her expression changed as she read through it and I gathered that the letter had been Charmed somehow to reveal different information when it was in the hands of its intended recipient.

And then she smiled. "So _you _are the infamous Secret Thief?"

"I've been called that name." I replied with a slight smirk of my own. "You must be Miss Commissa."

"Do call me Anastacia. You must think you're very clever, Dorobo." She remarked casually, circling me like a hawk contemplating a kill. "Trying to get into Yu-Shan all on your own?"

"I've gotten in before." I realized belatedly that I probably shouldn't have volunteered such information. Even if Dorian had told Miss Commissa that I was "Dorobo", she had no way of knowing how much of what she'd heard about me was true and how much simply rumor.

"Hm. Brave too, are we? A little bit reckless?" She observed. "I like that in a man."

She was very strong, I realized as she put her hand on my shoulder. Not that it should have surprised me, given that she apparently cut her own stone, but it was something that I filed away for later.

As much as I wanted to keep my wits about me, I found that very difficult to do in Miss Commissa's presence. If I drew secrets from people by preying upon their fear, she clearly did the same by seducing her victims. Playing her game would be _very _dangerous, but part of me suspected that it would also be well worth the risk. "So we are working together?" I hazarded a guess.

"No. I don't trust you, not yet." She informed me. "I'm going to need you to do something for me first. Come with me to Sijan. I have an important client whom I believe is... _withholding _information from me. Steal his secrets and you're _mine_."

Normally, I would have been extremely annoyed if anyone, even a God, had implied that they were my master. But in the presence of Miss Commissa, I found myself wondering if it was really so bad to be owned. I noticed, of course, that she'd asked me to go to Sijan... which was the one city in Creation I didn't feel comfortable waltzing into.

"I can't go to Sijan!" I argued. Of course, if she didn't already know that it was because the God of the City still wanted to crush me into a bloody pulp, I wasn't going to tell her so. "Right now, I don't have the time!"

"You have all the time you'll need, my little thief." She replied. "There are many parties already interfering with this celestial audit that you're so worried about. Trust your _Celo Viatori _to look after themselves, at least for a little while... and come with me. I am _very _good at what I do, boy. You might actually learn something."

"I look forward to the opportunity." I replied.

I immediately thought of Brock. As soon as the sun went down, he would find me... and I would have to explain to him why I was actually considering stirring up more trouble with a God who'd already tried to kill me once.

"Well now, I do think that's enough work for one day! I'm going to go freshen up. You can meet me at The Divine Peach tomorrow morning. Wait until the Solars leave and then get us a table on the patio overlooking the river. We'll discuss the _particulars_ there. Oh, and..." Miss Commissa caught my chin with one finger, drawing my attention back to her. A fine silvery dust of marble fell on the shoulder of my coat. "Nice cufflinks." She informed me, deftly removing one and very intentionally dropping it between her breasts. When a woman did something like that, she was insinuating that in order to get what you wanted back... you'd have to get her out of her clothes.

_Challenge accepted, madame._

I smiled at the thought.

Without another word or glance in my direction, Miss Commissa left. I followed her with my eyes as she sashayed down the corridor, undressing her in my mind.

Then I scoffed at myself.

_Was I insane? _She was trying to take advantage of me, and she'd already discovered the easiest way to do it!

I closed the doors of the studio and slid down to the floor. My legs felt useless and my heart was pounding in my chest. It was obvious that Anastacia was trying to steal my secrets... but somehow that only made her even more irresistibly attractive!

Dorian was right. She was going to eat me alive... but _only _if I dropped my guard again.

I composed myself and brushed the marble off of my coat.

_Watch out, Miss Commissa_. I thought smugly to myself, taking the little chisel she'd been using on her sculpture and slipping it into my pocket. _Two can play at this game._


	6. Chapter 6 - Tetsuo

Disclaimer: 

In this chapter, Tetsuo and Anastacia get into a "famous quotes" battle. As they quote fictional philosophers of their world, I decided to do a little shout-out to some of my favorite real philosophers (some of you may know that I have done this before – I quoted Voltaire in The Well of Udr). The first three quotes are from Sun Tsu, the middle three are Machiavelli and the last one is Nietzsche.

I waited for Brock at the gates of Nexus all night. Just when I was sure that something bad had happened to my friend, he finally made his appearance. He was sitting astride Maat on the crest of the hill I'd come down earlier in the very edges of the bordermarsh. Knowing that he couldn't come any closer to the city without dismissing his mount, I waved to get his attention and then ran up to meet him. The city guards watched me suspiciously, but didn't follow me out onto the road. Clearly, they didn't see Brock... or didn't understand why I was so eager to catch the attention of a ghost.

"I was waiting for you." I informed him. "Where have you been?"

"Business." He admitted. "Lord Khaaj summoned me."

"I'm sorry." I paused. I felt like I should apologize. We'd only hurried to Nexus because I'd insisted and I was certain that summoning Maat was what had caused "Lord Khaaj" to remember that he hadn't ordered his mercenary ghost around recently. It was no secret to me that Brock didn't particularly like his other employer, but as I saw it, having access to one of the Al-Khayl was the kind of perk that would make almost any job bearable.

"So you met with the woman?" It wasn't really a question as he posed it.

"Yes." I admitted. "And I'm going with her to Sijan."

"Well, in that case..." Brock heaved a huge sigh and shook his head heavily. He pressed something into my hand, a little black piece of ebony that seemed to have green flames dancing in its depths. I knew what it was immediately. It was the whistle he used to call Maat.

"You could get into trouble for giving me this." I observed.

"Hope you don't have to use it." Brock replied gruffly. "I'd... better get going."

And that was clearly all he was willing to say.

I strung the demon whistle onto a piece of cord and put it around my neck. If I hurried back to my accommodations I could still catch enough sleep to negotiate with Anastacia in the morning... but I also had some investigating that I wanted to do first.

I went first to the Guild of Stonecutters and Sculptors, let myself in their back door and approached the little shrine to Pagwa, the local God of their trade.

A few motes of Essence proved to be sufficient to get his attention.

The God assumed corporeal form and blinked at me owlishly. He was not a very big God and had a flat gray face that made me think of Anastacia's unfinished sculpture. "Who are you, and what do you want at this outrageous hour of morning?" He demanded.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about Anastacia Commissa." I replied.

"Who?" Pagwa wondered.

"Anastacia Commissa." I repeated. "You must know who I'm talking about. She's a marble dealer from Sijan who lives in this city. A very talented sculptor."

The God considered what I had said, but either he was purposefully being uncooperative or he really had no idea who Anastacia was. I was betting on the latter.

That worried me. The only reason a God like Pagwa wouldn't _know _of a sculptor of Anastacia's caliber was if she had gone through great pains to conceal her presence from him... or if she wasn't really a sculptor at all. In fact, something I'd smelled in her house left me thinking "sorceress" was probably a more apt description.

I sighed in disgust and threw her chisel into the pile of garbage where we stood.

_So much for that plan_. I thought to myself, trying very hard not to let my face betray how annoyed I actually was.

"Ahem?" The God wondered as I started to leave. "Since you disturbed me in the first place... I was wondering if you would..."

"If I would _what_?" I turned back to him, perhaps a little meaner than I should have been.

"There are rumors, you see. About a Godblood who can get anything for the right price. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

I considered. Pagwa could potentially help me, but he could also tell other Gods of my whereabouts. I decided not to tell him anything and focusing on working every angle I could with Anastacia first.

"No. I'm just trying to impress a woman." I told the little God.

"Well, I don't know why you came to bother me then." He remarked. "I'm not the God of Flowers or Jewelry."

"Not all women impress so easily." I informed him.

Pagwa gave me another odd look and promptly discorporated.

The next morning I headed to The Divine Peach where I was supposed to meet Anastacia. I remembered what she said about waiting "until the Solars left" and arrived especially early so that I could get a good look at the "glorious, enlightened, rulers" of the New Deliberative.

I knew better than to try to forcibly pry secrets out of them. Like any powerful Exalts, Solars were quick to recognize that they were being manipulated and while the Sidereals I'd encountered in Stygia had merely told me to piss off, they _weren't _on their home turf at the time and obviously didn't want to reveal what they really were.

At first I thought I had the wrong restaurant. There was no one present who looked the part of a Celestial "lawgiver"... although my eye were drawn in the direction of a tall, blonde man in his early thirties who sat out on the patio where Anastacia had requested that I find us a table.

He had a bowl of rice with a fried egg on top of it in front of him, and all of his companions were eating the same thing. It seemed strange that anyone would go to an exclusive restaurant to order fare that any cheap tavern could provide, but the four were clearly comfortable with their surroundings and the waiters seemed to know them well.

To the left of the man I'd noticed first was a short, fiery-looking woman clad in black leather who wore a pair of firewands on her hips and had her feet kicked up on the table. Across from her sat a skinny, nervous, red-headed man dressed in all white who was tinkering with a little gold ball, and a Southerner who was talking in a very loud, animated fashion. I didn't hear but the tail end of what he was relating, but from the reactions of the waiters, it was clearly an exciting story.

"And then he just looked at me and said, 'Who the hell do you think you are?' And, well... I couldn't resist!" He beamed.

The man at the head of the table groaned. "Roach!"

"Loren, you would have done the same thing!" The Southerner protested.

"Oh no. Loren would have _apologized!_" The woman interrupted. She put her nose in the air and her hand to her chest, doing what I gathered was her best impression of the man she was sitting next to, the one called Loren. "What seems to be the trouble, citizen? Oh, _I'm _the trouble? Oh, I'm terribly sorry! I'll just be on my way then. I'm not oppressing you. Do you see me not oppressing you?"

"Sapphire!" Loren glared at her.

"And Veritas would have just turned Godchaser loose on em'!" Sapphire added.

The tinkerer put down whatever he was working on and smiled slightly. "You do realize, Roach, that you can't just flare your Caste Mark whenever some little upstart God won't listen to you."

"I can when it's _hilarious!_" He replied.

The words "Caste Mark" confirmed my suspicions. So these four were the new rulers of Nexus?

I decided to risk trying to pull a good secret out of one of them, and casually brushed past their leader. Though they all called him "Loren", I could only guess that he was the legendary "Faeslayer". The secret I got from him was so powerful that it almost caused me to trip right onto my face.

_Cursed_.

That didn't make any sense to me, so I tried again... and got the same response from the man in white.

_Cursed_.

They were all cursed?

Or no, it was more than that! _All _Solars were cursed! But most Solars didn't _know_?

I realized that I'd stumbled upon a very big secret indeed and slowly sat down at a nearby table, calling for a glass of water. The Solars all eyed me suspiciously.

"Sidereal?" The one called Veritas whispered, glancing in my direction.

"No." A female voice chirped. I realized that it was his cloak he was talking to. "Just a Godblood."

The Solars glanced in my direction every so often as they finished their breakfast, paid their tab, and left. I drank down another two glasses of water and attempted to straighten out my hair before Anastacia arrived.

When she did make her appearance, she did not fail to impress. She was dressed in an emerald colored gown with a scandalously plunging neckline and her hair was styled in a very intricate fashion. A pair of little gold spectacles perched on her nose. She sat down across from me and began fanning herself with delicate rosewood fan. One of the waiters brought her a glass of white wine.

I decided to open up the conversation by lobbing my first piece of ammunition. "You're looking particularly lovely this morning, Miss Anastacia. One would think that any man who met you would be absolutely helpless under your spell."

She clearly did not like the implication that I _wasn't _her willing slave. Nevertheless, I had a point to make, and I was going to make it.

"You think you've got me under your thumb. But you haven't covered your trail as well as you think. You're not Anastacia Commissa." I informed her.

"Rude boy!" She warned me. "My family..."

"Is still in Sijan. As is the real Anastacia." I finished. "You're an imposter."

She smiled slightly. "Don't be absurd!"

"Am I being absurd? I'm not actually fishing for proof, milady. I'm not at all interested in unmasking you." I informed her, now convinced that I was right. Anastacia Commissa was _not _Anastacia Commissa. "I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not someone you can string along like a little toy."

Anastacia smirked. "The thought never crossed my mind. I suppose we might as well get down to business." She paused. "You needn't know my reasons, but the entity that I'm having trouble with in Sijan is the City God Ereshkigal. He's been making it very difficult for me to do business there. And I've been told by our mutual friend Dorian Gray that Ereshkigal loathes _you _more than anyone in Heaven or Creation. And because he hates you so much, Dorobo, I have an inkling that if you were to make a return to Sijan, that crotchety, pompous old God would make _exactly _the kind of mistake that I want him to make."

"I see." I observed, noting that the situation had just gotten far more dangerous. "You want me to be your bait. And what do I get out of this arrangement?"

"_You _get into Yu-Shan. Which is what you want, isn't it?" She pressed.

"How do I know that you can deliver?" I demanded.

"I'm quite well-connected." Anastacia replied cryptically. "You needn't worry."

"You'll have to do better than that. I don't make a habit of trusting what people_ say_." I paused.

"And if I tell you all my secrets, will you tell me all of yours?" She retorted. "If I give you too much information, Dorobo, we both know that you'll go off on your own and cut me out of the deal."

I scowled. She was right, of course. That _had _been my original plan. "Very well. So when do we leave?" I asked.

"At the end of the week. I'll make all of the necessary arrangements." She replied, fanning herself. "It's a bit too hot out here, don't you think? Why don't we go somewhere with shade?"

She offered me her arm and I took it like a courtier. We hailed a carriage and Anastacia instructed the driver to take us to The University.

I'd never actually set foot on the grounds of The University of Nexus before. Though my father had ensured that I learned enough about every subject to qualify as well-educated, I'd never actually sat in a class with other students and I'd had only one instructor for my entire childhood.

In fairness, there's no University Professor anywhere in Creation who can hold a candle to a Sidereal savant. And my sifu had been on of the scions of my father's Division, a Chosen of Secrets.

With Anastacia leading the way through each little courtyard and garden, I felt surprisingly comfortable. The ancient live oaks that had planted on the grounds when the first stones were laid provided wonderful shade and painted the whole world green beneath their branches. There were some University professors and students also walking the grounds, as well as a fair number of idle, wealthy ladies, all of whom stared at Anastacia.

She smiled sweetly back at them and I began to suspect that she was _exactly _the kind of woman that those rich merchant's wives hoped their bored husbands would never meet. Though like any criminal of a certain caliber, I understood how to behave in high society, it was not my natural element as it seemed to be Anastacia's. She was clearly what your garden-variety pickpocket would refer to as a _butterfly_, a woman who got into even the most exclusive social circles on looks and poise alone.

I'd known a few butterflies in my time. Like their namesake, most of them had been poisonous.

Even still, there was something immensely satisfying about having Anastacia on my arm. Maybe it was the reactions of all the men. My clothes weren't shabby, but they'd been bought in an inexpensive store. I obviously wasn't wealthy, and as I've often been told, I'm a little too thin, pale and wild-eyed to get the attention of most women. Obviously, they couldn't fathom how I'd captured a jewel like Anastacia.

"Isn't it just so _beautiful_?" She sighed. I realized that my arm had drifted around her waist. It was slightly inappropriate to be leading her in such a fashion, but since I didn't need to impress anyone in Nexus, I decided to let them all think whatever they liked. If Anastacia didn't protest, I could only assume that her intentions were the same as my own.

It always started with simple games and manipulation. At some point we'd fall into bed together, then we would try to kill each other... and ultimately, the best thief would win.

I let Anastacia get some distance away from me, pretending to be very interested in the white roses that lined the garden path. Of course, it was the woman I was really watching.

I wondered what her real name was and considered how she might have gotten into her present position. She didn't strike me as a black widow, willing to kill the real Commissa heiress or whichever wealthy old merchant had formerly occupied her sumptuous residence.

Maybe it had been a crime of opportunity?

Anastacia danced back over to me and took up my arm again, her delicate fingers drifting to the ropes of pearls around her throat as she gazed up at me. I was not much taller than she was, but the slight difference in our heights meant that if she was to kiss me while we were standing, she'd have to go up on her toes. I decided to let her make the first move. It was something I could use against her later.

"Ahem?" An old professor interrupted, elbowing her way between the two of us. She disappeared up a flight of stairs. Anastacia seemed disappointed as she realized that we'd reached the end of the garden path and were now in the courtyard of the University where scholars and students were all bustling around and getting in our way.

Of course, sightseers weren't permitted to go everywhere on University grounds, but the library was open to the public and so we went inside. There were a few students sitting at desks and a nervous-looking professor with severe dark circles under his eyes gathering up more books than one man could possibly carry. He scurried past me and as his shoulder brushed mine, I picked up a secret from him.

_He knew_.

But what?

The professor knew something, obviously, and it wasn't something he was supposed to know. Sometimes my ability to steal secrets wasn't very useful at all. It only left me feeling unsettled and a little worried.

Anastacia turned in circles like a dancer and drifted out into the middle of the room, staring up at the thousands upon thousands of books on the towering shelves which loomed more than six stories above where we stood.

As libraries went, I had to admit that it was very impressive. I'd actually never seen better... except in Yu-Shan.

"Oh, how I've always wanted to study at a University like this!" Anastacia exclaimed.

"So why don't you?" I suggested. "You're living right here in Nexus! And you can certainly afford it."

"Perhaps I will!" She retorted. "What about you, Dorobo? Are you an educated man?"

"I'd be dead by now if I wasn't. I actually had a private tutor." I admitted, not knowing what compelled me to give Anastacia any information about my real life – that is, my life as Tetsuo and not "The Secret Thief". "She was... unconventional. But excellent. I always enjoyed her history lectures."

"_History_. Fascinating subject! It's always so interesting to see how people react when they don't hold all the cards, don't you think? It makes you respect how powerful secrets can be." Anastacia paused. She considered the books on the shelf in front of her and finally decided on a particularly fat and intimidating unabridged copy of Cathak Garel's "Famous Generals of the Early Shogunate".

"I like secrets." I said.

"I assume that's why you steal them." Anastacia replied. "Say, have you read this one?"

"Of course! I quoted. _"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."_

"Everyone knows that quote!" She scoffed.

"You can do better?" I prompted.

"_Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate_!" She retorted.

"Clever." I smiled slightly, and decided to counter her. _"The skillful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man."_

"Bah, too easy!" Anastacia tossed the tome down on the nearest table and went for a delicate, red-bound little book I knew very well, the letters of Nexus's most famous Guildmaster, Prospero VI.

"_Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many!"_ I recited.

"_For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit_!" She waved the book in my face.

"_It is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her!_" I replied, seizing the book from her.

"I am _offended_!" She gaped at me, though she obviously wasn't.

"A challenge then, scholar!" Anastacia decided. With her hands on her hips, she stormed over to the "religion" section and pulled a copy of _Thus Spake The Dragon_ down from the shelf_._

I didn't bother to disguise my disgust. As the son of a God, I don't put too much stock in the Immaculate Order, an organization which coerces and bulliest mortals away from the worship of most other deities. Of course, that didn't mean that I was completely ignorant of their philosophy.

"Very well. You asked for it!" I took the book from Anastacia, held it to my chest and made a face that would have earned me a good beating if there had been a Dragonblood anywhere in the library. "_Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? "Thou shalt" is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, "I will." "Thou shalt" lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animal covered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden "thou shalt." Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all the dragons: "All value of all things shines on me. All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more 'I will.'" Thus speaks the dragon!"_

"I don't believe it! You honestly got through that pretentious piece of trash?" She demanded, her hands on her hips.

"I memorized the important parts." I whispered. "Sometimes the trick isn't actually to read the whole book. It's to figure out what everyone else thinks is so good about it."

"Sneaky!" She gasped.

I dropped the book on the floor, which I hadn't meant to do... but when Anastacia had jumped at me, I'd caught a glimpse of my cufflink cleverly laced into her corset. Though she'd changed her clothes since our first encounter, she'd apparently decided to leave my little treasure _exactly _where she'd originally put it. I rubbed the one cufflink that remained on my right sleeve.

If the Maiden of Secrets was watching, which one of us did she favor?

"As if you've never _pretended_ to know something?" I taunted. "Or _someone_?"

I said that word in a particularly suggestive manner, so she would take it as insult.

Anastacia slapped me with her fan, but not without a smile on her face. "I don't have to pretend! I _am _as spectacular as I look!"

And she _was_, damn that woman!

We spent the remainder of the day tearing through the University's library until a servant informed us that it was time for him to lock the doors and politely requested that we put away all of the books we'd pulled down from the shelves.

Since that amount of work would have taken us hours, Anastacia and I took off running instead. We made it as far as the street before the head librarian saw what we'd done to his sanctuary and came chasing after us with a ruler. Fortunately, Anastacia's whistle could get the attention of a carriage horse from a mile away and we escaped completely unscathed.

Our driver took us back to Anastacia's residence first, and we spent the entire ride giggling like a pair of wicked schoolchildren.

"Are you coming up?" She asked me as I walked her to the door. In the process of our daring escape, she'd lost the ornate comb that had held her hair in place. With those curls falling over her shoulders, she looked almost as windblown as I always did, and the look suited her. The same was true of her little glasses. I felt inspired somehow, seeing those little imperfections. For the briefest of moments, I considered saying _yes _to her offer. I still hadn't gotten a single secret out of her, and the idea of a warm bed did seem _very _appealing.

"We've only just met." I replied, kissing her hand. "And we wouldn't want to do anything that might tarnish Miss Commissa's reputation, now would we?"

For the first time, Anastacia did not look down her nose at me when I suggested that she _wasn't _Miss Commissa. "No." She smirked. "We wouldn't."

At that moment, Anastacia finally lowered her guard. Almost imperceptibly, but enough that a secret jumped out at me and I immediately caught it. I'd been right all along!

_Anastacia Commissa wasn't only an imposter. There was no Miss Commissa, no Commissa family and not even a real marble company. It was all an elaborate masquerade! And somehow, nobody knew that but me!_

Anastacia's servant closed the door between us, and I told the carriage driver to take me back to my accommodations. The whole ride down from Sentinel Hill, I watched Anastacia's mansion shrink and then fade away completely into the dark.

I was more troubled than I wanted to admit, and I wished that Brock hadn't been called away by his other employer. The old mercenary would beat some sense in my head, and I needed to hear one of his nasty stories about the evils of women. I knew that it was important to keep Anastacia dancing at an arm's length so that she would have very little opportunity to stab me in the back.

And yet, I wasn't the only one treading on dangerous ground.

There was no way "Miss Commissa" could keep up such an elaborate and expensive con forever. Eventually, she'd have to run from Nexus. And when she did, perhaps I could be there to extend her an offer that she couldn't refuse. The _Celo Viatori _could provide her a new place to hide, new contacts to burn through, and maybe even a few useful secrets. Although we'd only known each other a very short time, the way we kept pace with one another seemed so effortless, like Fate.

Of course, I knew quite a bit about Fate. Anyone who has ever set foot in Yu-Shan understands that Fate is an inconceivably powerful force, but I'd never actually felt its pull before as I felt it then.

Maybe this game we were playing wasn't about which one of us was the better thief.

As we reached the Cinnabar District and my inn, the carriage driver gave me a parting glance. She was probably eighteen years old and not much to look at. The expression on her face, however, needed no explanation.

"Something amiss?" I asked.

"No, sir." She replied.

And yet as I stepped out of the carriage and up onto the curb, I saw that the carriage driver was still watching me with that same, wistful, irritating smile... like a pining heroine in a bad play. Of course, that was when it hit me.

_Love?_

_The stupid girl thought I was in love!_

What if I was?

"Shit!" I cursed, much louder than I'd intended to.

The drunks around the front door of the tavern scattered.

"What's wrong with you, man?" One of them muttered.

"Nothing a few drinks won't cure." I informed him.

Three hours later, I'd polished off almost two full bottles of wine... and I still wasn't feeling better. I'd almost nodded off to sleep when a familiar laugh drew my attention and I caught a whiff of celestial opium. Very slowly, I looked up. Burning Feather, The Goddess of Intoxicants, was sitting directly across from me. She appeared as she always did, in the guise of a very old prostitute with smoking feathers in her hair, the eyes of a fae lord, and a mouth full of black teeth. "My _dear_ Dorobo!" She gave me a cat's smile. "Oh, I can't tell you how I've looked forward to _this _conversation!"

"The great Secret-Thief, paragon of restraint, drinking himself stupid to soothe pains of an aching heart!" Burning Feather poured me another glass of wine.

I pounded my head against the table in front of me and groaned. "I'm _not _in love!" I protested, nearly knocking over the glass she'd set for me. My head was already swimming and the last thing I needed was to continue drinking with a God whose presence alone actually caused most mortals to become inebriated.

"Oh, I'm afraid it's much worse than that, poppet." Burning Feather informed me. "You're not just in love, dear... you're also in Fate."

"_That woman is going to kill me!" _I argued.

"Sometimes they do." Burning Feather smirked. "But what if it's worth it?"

"You think I should go after her?" I smiled slightly.

"What I think is altogether irrelevant. Suffice to say that love will make you more of a fool than drinking ever will. But then again, the sweetest intoxication there is cannot be drawn from any vine." She replied. "One more drink for me, poppet. I'll make sure you get some good sleep tonight." She gestured to the wineglass in front of me.

"For you." I replied, giving her a little salute. The Goddess discorporated.

I drained my glass... and promptly passed out.

I woke up in the early afternoon. As some point over the course of the night, I'd evidentially been lucid enough to make it back up to my room, but I couldn't remember actually leaving the bar and I hadn't taken my boots off before collapsing into bed.

Since my new clothes were now dirtier than the clothes I'd worn to Stygia, I decided it was time to find a laundress. I also needed something for the wretched hammering in my head, a side effect of the alcohol I hadn't quite slept off. Taking stock of what I had left in my possession, I knew that I should find someone with a few juicy secrets I could steal... but for some reason, I didn't feel up to the task.

I decided that if I simply spent my day avoiding Anastacia, I'd consider it a success. A two-week trip up to Sijan in her company was beginning to seem like a terrible idea, but I'd played so many of my cards setting up the Stygian coin job that I didn't have another way of getting into Yu-Shan. And if I tapped any of my usual contacts, there was a good chance that Seven Seasons Widow or someone else who worked for The Mask of Winters would find me.

I toyed with Brock's Malfean horse whistle. I wasn't planning on blowing it unless I absolutely had to, but it was nice to know that _someone_ had my back.

Still trying to decide what to do next, I picked up my sole remaining cufflink and stared at it for a short while. Maybe I could get a message to my father?

I picked up a pen and a piece of paper, took a deep breath and focused.

The letter-writing Charm that my father used to make sure his messages to me could not be intercepted was one of the first bits of conscious Essence manipulation that I'd ever learned. Even hungover, I could still manage to work it. The trick was to write something innocuous while instilling every word with I really wanted to say.

_The Most Excellent Designers of Destiny and Sidereal Conjunctions, _

_Division of Secrets, The Forbidding Manse of Ivy_

_Nara-O of the Hundred Veils, Keeper of Secrets,_

_News of Heaven's most recent audit has reached my ears. What are your thoughts on the matter?_

_ Most sincerely,_

I hesitated. Of course, I couldn't very well sign my own name. Mere mortals such as myself were supposed to send prayers to Heaven, not official correspondence. But prayers were often ignored, bled dry for their quintessence and never actually answered.

_Burning Feather. _

I smiled slightly as I signed the Goddess's name. She may have thought it was funny to see me drunk and miserable, but she wouldn't be laughing if someone apprehended my letter and thought that she was sending secret messages to someone who was facing a very serious Audit.

Dueling with Anastacia, I'd started to doubt myself. Getting even with the Goddess of Intoxicants, however, made me feel much more confident in my own abilities. Focusing my Charm like the edge of a razor, I let the words swim and rearrange themselves so that I could check what I'd actually written.

_Father,_

_I've heard about the Audit and I am worried about you. What do you want me to do?_

_ All my love,_

_ Tetsuo_

It wasn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but it was good enough. I folded it up and sealed it closed. Now all I had to do was find a God I could coerce into sending it for me. I decided that my best bet would be to wander down to the Temple District and make my decision when I got there.

The Temple District of the restored Nexus was by far the most impressive part of the city. Though I knew that my best bet would be to track down a little God like Pagwa or one that I knew to be thoroughly corrupt like Dorian Gray, I found myself drifting in to the bigger temples just to admire the architecture.

I gleaned a few secrets as I wandered, but nothing particularly earth-shattering. When we'd discussed our next move at my tavern, Dorian had seemed very convinced that Nexus was too reformed for the likes of us, and I was beginning to fear that he was right.

Finally, I reached the end of the road. Looking out over the waterfront was an unusual building with a domed roof. It was tall but not very broad and at first, I wondered if it was a lighthouse. Then I considered the way the roof seemed to be assembled and realized that it had to be an observatory.

Since no one was watching the doors, I let myself right in. There was a wooden staircase encircling the room and a little desk in the entry way buried in stacks of free newspapers, city maps, and religious propaganda. Above my head sat a massive brass telescope which was fixed to a platform that seemed to raise and lower mechanically.

"Hello?" I called out.

There was no response. I made my way up the stairs and evaluated the telescope. It was a phenomenal feat of engineering by any standards and I was curious to see how well it actually worked. The old Nexus I remembered, drowning in smog, never had many stars in its night sky... but the ironworks of Nighthammer were mostly gone, replaced by far more sophisticated First Age factories.

I couldn't imagine how the old foundry roustabouts were faring in an environment so very different from everything they'd ever known. The transition from smelting to magitech must have been as difficult for them as the transition from Guild rule to the New Deliberative. No doubt, there were probably still some dissenters. But even the most disillusioned men had to respect how clean the river was and how clear the sky had become.

I caught sight of a chart left sitting on a table beside the telescope. Someone had been working on it recently, jotting down the positions of certain constellations. Any scholar would have found such a chart interesting purely because of its scientific value, but I was also looking at something else.

You see, the positions of the stars are not at all arbitrary. They show everything which is going on in Heaven and Creation and those who are adept at reading them can predict all sorts of things, from whether or not the harvest will be good to when someone will be born or die.

My sifu had always considered me an abysmal failure at Astrology, but considering that she was a Sidereal, I never took her abuse to heart.

As the Exalts of the Five Maidens and the Chosen of the Stars, Sidereals do more than predict the future. They actually use Astrology to _change _it.

Whoever had made the star chart I was looking over was obviously wise to something. He had made a note in the upper right quadrant which read,

_The Mask has moved._

That seemed strange, but it worried me more because of all of the constellations, The Mask most often signified conspiracies. Had some poor astronomer actually realized that there was trouble afoot in Heaven? Did the change I perceived have anything to do with the_ Celo Viatori _or was I simply interpreting what I read how I wanted to?

I took a blank piece of paper from the table that no one would miss and marked the position of The Mask on it along with the present date. If the constellation moved again, I would know to be worried.

That was when I heard the door to the observatory open. I flattened myself against the wall and cursed involuntarily. The last thing I wanted was to be caught pilfering through a stranger's papers while I still had a letter addressed to a God in my pocket.

A man had entered the observatory. He was probably my own age and dressed like a University scholar, carrying several rolled-up star charts tucked under his arm. Sighing heavily, he swept the stacks of newspapers and other junk off of the table at the bottom of the stairs.

I made myself invisible right before he came up to retrieve his own most recent charts, the ones which showed the movement of The Mask. He stopped for a moment and stared right in my direction, seeing nothing. I considered reaching out and trying to glean a secret from him, but it seemed as though he was still looking for me and so I didn't dare.

I can't actually hide my presence for very long, and between my ill-conceived pub crawl and my stressful morning letter-writing, I began to feel week and uneasy. I had very little Essence left and most of my will was utterly spent. Just as I was contemplating making a break for the door, I heard a sudden familiar chime.

A little ornate box had just appeared hovering in midair only a few feet away from the young astronomer. It was blue and gold and wouldn't have looked out of place on a rich woman's dresser, except it was most definitely floating and the seals emblazoned on its little doors were the insignia of The Cerulean Lute.

I didn't have to get a secret from him to know that he was a Sidereal. I even knew his Caste.

The Chosen of Serenity sighed in defeat and checked his mail. As he unsealed the first set of orders he'd received and perused them, I had an inspired idea.

The doors of his celestial mailbox were still hanging open, and as soon as they were closed, I knew that the box would return to Yu-Shan. Throwing caution to the wind, I leapt down from my perch, stuffed my letter into the Sidereal's mailbox and slammed it closed. His star charts flew everywhere as he whirled around to see who had just gotten the drop on him.

"What are you doing in here?" He demanded.

"Posting a letter!" I replied with a smirk.

That was when he realize that I'd just sent something to Heaven using his mailbox.

"Of all the... _who do you think you are_?" The Sidereal fumed.

I didn't dignify that question with a response. At that moment I'd noticed one of his new star charts which had fallen near my feet. It showed The Mask again in a _different _position!

_I was right! There was something going on!_

I seized the chart and went straight for the door.

I didn't actually get so far. The Sidereal was suddenly standing right in front of me. When I took a good swing at him, he was behind me again as if he'd never moved... and then he had me up against the wall. Though he wasn't any bigger than I was, as an Exalt he was much stronger. He lifted me off my feet with one hand.

I let the star chart drop to the floor and didn't struggle.

Generally speaking, it's unwise to spar with a Sidereal. Since the beginning of time they've perfected martial arts which actually bend the fabric of Creation in such a way that they can literally be in two places at once.

"Nice try." The Sidereal glared at me. As soon as he stopped playing the part of a mousy little University student, he became quite intimidating. Not that I'd tell him so. "Now who are you?" He demanded.

I could feel the insidious pull of the Charm he was using to coerce the truth out of me and resisted it with all my strength. "You're a little rough for a Chosen of Serenity!" I informed him.

He didn't seem surprised that he knew what he was. In fact, he actually threw me against the wall again. "Now I'm usually very patient, but you are treading on very dangerous ground, thief! What was that letter you sent?"

As he used his Charm on me again, I found that I was compelled to tell him the truth.

"A letter to my father." I replied.

The Sidereal gave me a strange look, as if he'd begun to understand that I was a Godblood and that I'd eluded him using a Charm of some kind. I took advantage of his moment of distraction and swung my foot up as if I intended to kick him in the gut. When he reacted to my feint, I struck him hard in the right temple with a ridgehand and then carried my forearm across his face and drove my elbow into the left side of his head.

He staggered and fell into his table, cursing incoherently.

That was all the opportunity I needed. Before he could recover, I was gone. I dodged into the narrow alleyway between a temple dedicated to The God of Mercenaries and a shrine belonging to Burning Feather, who still seemed to be one of the most popular deities in Nexus. Considering that I'd just used her name on the letter I'd sent, I decided I should probably avoid asking her for help and jumped into a nearby trash pile instead.

From my hiding place, I could see the Sidereal standing outside of his observatory, rubbing his head and looking for me. The stench was almost unbearable and I'd squished something very nasty with my right hand. Still, I waited until the Sidereal gave up and went back inside before I rolled out of the pile of refuse that had almost swallowed me whole.

Filthy as I was, I had no choice but to walk back to my accommodations in the Cinnabar District. Because of the smell, I tore off most of my clothes before I made it out of Little Sijan and was staggering down the street in only my breeches and boots when a familiar-looking carriage passed by.

And then _stopped_.

I froze where I stood as Anastacia leaned out the window and blinked at me in disbelief. "Dorabo?" She gasped. "What happened to you?"

"I am a very bad person and Heaven hates me." I replied.

She raised an eyebrow in my direction.

I approached her carriage as close as I dared and did my best to look composed. She wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of whatever it was I'd landed in. "You need a bath!" She informed me.

That was something I couldn't argue with, and an hour later I'd finished scrubbing half of my skin off in Anastacia's bathroom. It was just as lavish as the rest of her mansion and featured hot and cold running water as well as a marble tub large enough to bathe a horse in.

Her permanently disgruntled servant, the silver thief, brought me a change of clothes. I dressed quickly and surveyed my reflection in her flawless, full-length mirror. When I picked my own attire, I tried to be as practical as possible. I always looked for something that I could run away in if I had to, although I also wanted to keep up with the fashion of wherever I was. Anastacia had apparently decided a scholar's robe would suit me better than a coat and boots. She'd also guessed my size perfectly.

The robe was surprisingly comfortable and I wondered if I could fool anyone at the University into believing that I was a visiting professor. Or...

I smiled slightly. _An astrologer!_

One way or another, I was going to find out what that Sidereal was up to!

Anastacia didn't bother to knock on the door of the bathroom. She stood and watched me with a smug little smile on her face. "Green is your color." She decided.

"Why, I thought it was yours!" I replied. Once again, Anastacia was dressed to impress... this time in a sheer gown with green and gold scrolling vines embroidered around the collar and the hem. An emerald the size of a grape hung around her neck on a fine chain.

I examined the stone for a moment and let her think that I found it fascinating. Then I glanced over my shoulder as if I expected we were being watched and put on finger to Anastacia's lips, the universal gesture for silence. She seemed to jump at that, perhaps wondering what I thought I heard. I took advantage of her moment of weakness and seized the lacing of her corset, retrieving my stolen cufflink.

She gasped as her corset came completely undone and stared at me with her hands on her hips as I dangled my prize before her nose.

"Meet me at The An-Tang Princess tomorrow." I told her.

'That's a whorehouse!" She gaped at me.

"I think we've done enough dancing in your native environment." I informed her. "I want to know more about this mess that both of us are waltzing into and more about the method you've devised to get me into Yu-Shan."

"It's your cufflink." Anastacia snorted. "I don't know why you assume that_ I _want it back so badly!"

"Very well then, milady." I bowed and walked right out the door.

"If I end up covered in refuse, I'll kill you!" Anastacia warned.

I smiled slightly to myself.

_She was mine._


	7. Chapter 7 - Sam

Sam

I followed Jon's trail all night. He blazed an easy one to follow and the little gray mare I'd appropriated from Tepet Iwazo's stables proved to be a good mover. I was somewhat surprised that Nellens Satoshi and the rest of Lookshy's Municipal Security gave up the chase as soon as they did, but I suspected that they were only doubling back to the city to assemble an official Wyld Hunt.

That was something I didn't care to be caught in the middle of. I'd done some time in the Imperial Army myself, masquerading as a private in Mnemon Rai Jin's Ravenous Winds and discovered that soldiering was not something I liked. Some Resplendent Destinies were easier to wear than others, and I personally found it much easier to pretend to be naïve kid than career army. Of course, I could try to insinuate myself into a legion as a new recruit again... but new recruits were seldom party to important information and if Oversight expected me to look after Jon, the last thing I needed to do was get the both of us mixed up with the Realm.

It was just before dawn when I found Ronin. The big, flat-faced white stallion was standing like a guard dog in front of the entrance to a shallow cave and I was willing to bet anything that his master was somewhere inside. I dismounted and very slowly approached the horse. He nipped at me twice before I caught him dead in the eye and reminded him that he didn't want to give me any grief.

Once Ronin determined that I was a friend and not a threat, he decided that the mare I'd brought with me was far more interesting than I was. I slipped inside the cave.

Jon was lying on his back about ten feet from the cave's entrance and he looked like he'd been keelhauled through The Demon Sea. After he'd Exalted in the center of Lookshy, I wasn't surprised to see that he'd been shot more than once. The arrow wounds in his right leg and shoulder were both relatively minor and though he was bruised all over, he didn't seem to have any broken ribs. Still, I knew better than to let down my guard.

There was no way he could have simply fallen where he lay. More importantly, someone with considerable skill had already patched the poor sod up.

_I wasn't alone._

I flattened myself against the nearest wall and waited. Footsteps approached and I glanced over my shoulder, debating whether or not I should be going for a weapon. After about three minutes, a woman who looked like a Realm sophisticate dressed in a purple and black kimono made an appearance. At first, I almost bought the whole "merciful bodhisattva" persona that she was attempting to convey... but then I realized that what I was actually looking at was no kindly spirit... and no pretty little rich girl either.

Underneath the faint, fuzzy glimmer of a well-built Resplendent Destiny and a few pounds of makeup was a face I knew very well.

Jon's mysterious benefactor was a Sidereal, a Chosen of Endings known and feared throughout Yu-Shan as Vivian "The Ravisher". Physically speaking, she was absolutely stunning... and as _deadly _as her nickname suggested.

Viv and I had dated for awhile and things hadn't exactly ended well between us. I wasn't in any particular hurry to rekindle the old flame, as it had gotten me burned more than once... but it was nice to know that I wasn't up against some crazy old Lunar or a God with an ax to grind.

The best thing about dealing with anyone working for the Bureau of Destiny is that they can usually be counted on to do their jobs and let you do yours. I decided that my best option was to surrender and explain what I was up to _before_ Vivian got nervous and hurled a dozen daggers in my general direction.

"Viv?" I called out. She froze like a startled predator and searched the cave with one hand on her first blade. "It's me, Sam! I'm here on orders!" I added.

I stepped out of my hiding place.

"Sam?" Vivian gave me one of her particularly charming smiles, usually reserved for the sorts of people she intends to disembowel. "What brings you here?" She asked, as if she couldn't guess.

"Orders." I replied. "I'm supposed to follow the Solar." I pointed at Jon.

"So am I." She informed me. She didn't say where she was planning on leading him, but I knew who Viv usually worked for, so it wasn't too difficult for me to guess.

"And you're going to hand him off to the Cult of the Illuminated? Seriously? After everything this poor sod's already been through?" I raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"Oh, don't give me that look, Sam!" Vivian snapped. "It's what's best!"

"For who?" I demanded. "Y'know, most Solars are pretty good at finding their own trouble to get into!" I reminded her. "The Cult's full of lunatics, Viv! Half of what they say is _completely _fabricated and the rest is awfully iffy."

"You're exaggerating. They're no worse than the Immaculate Order." She replied, though she probably guessed from my reaction that she wasn't helping her own case by bringing up the Bronze Faction's favorite brainwashing institution.

I rolled my eyes.

"So where were you planning on 'following' him?" Vivian put her hands on her hips.

"Wherever he wants to go." I replied, saying nothing.

"Are you _trying _to get turned into Starmetal?" She hissed, clocking me on the side of the head.

"What?" I protested, playing innocent. Of course, Vivian already _knew _what I'd been planning. She could read me as well as I could read her. It was a large part of the reason we'd called it quits.

"Nexus is dangerous!" She reprimanded me, as if that was something I didn't know.

"I was assigned to two of those Solars." I reminded her. "Two years tailing Faeslayer, six months watching Perfect!"

"And if Nara-O and half the Division of Secrets wasn't in Fakheru's frying pan right now, _you _would be up for Audit!" She reminded me.

I didn't respond. Viv clearly knew she'd won. To be fair, my orders from Oversight hadn't actually specified how long I had to follow Jon or where he was supposed to be headed... so I didn't have much of a leg to stand on. I still disliked the idea of turning him over to The Cult of the Illuminated, but their nearest stronghold _was _days away and there wasn't much either Vivian or I could do before Jon had recovered enough to ride.

"Jon should be out for at least eight more hours." Viv informed me. "I've used some of my better Charms on him and he'll be healed by then. We might as well catch a few hours sleep while we have the opportunity. I'll set my watch to wake us both before dawn. Then we can decided on our story and our Resplendent Destinies." She finished.

Though I still didn't like that she was winning, Vivian did have a good point. Since no one in Creation actually knows that Sidereals exist, it's usually handy to have a few different disguises prepared. I had three that I could use myself.

Of course, I was willing to bet that whichever guise Vivian donned would be something fabulous and sensual that would allow her to seduce Jon. It seemed natural to counter her attempts to manipulate him by painting myself as the honest, happy. "buddy" he could count on, who could remind him that women were _never_ to be trusted, particularly when they happened to be drop-dead gorgeous. To that end, I was counting on using a Destiny I'd built under The Gull which had served me well in the past.

"I'll check on the horses." I offered, not trying to sound like I didn't trust Viv, which I didn't. Vivian gave me an odd sort of noncommittal response and I went outside, pacing and watching the stars until I was fairly sure she was asleep.

Then I got to work and started putting together prayers that I might need. I watched Vivian out of the corner of my eye. As she'd promised, there didn't seem to be any change in Jon's status. It was almost dawn when I felt myself beginning to nod off. As prepared as I could be, I decided to close my eyes for a little while and then let Vivian wake me right before she woke Jon so she'd think she had the upper hand.

Of course, when I did wake up... both Jon and Vivian were gone. And so was my horse.

I decided to do the smartest thing I could under the circumstances. I donned my Resplendent Destiny under The Gull and put together a materials requisition form for my own mare to be sent from Yu-Shan. Aside from saving me the trouble that more thieving was bound to cause, Crow was far too smart to let anyone steal her.

Not even an hour after I'd finished in the necessary paperwork, I received a surprisingly succinct and cooperative response from Oversight.

_Horse waiting .4 miles north of current location._

It seemed awfully easy, but Oversight's instructions, no matter how absurd they sounded, were never wise to ignore. I started walking right away and reached the very edge of a tiny bordermarsh, a small one that seemed concentrated around an odd-looking upside-down tree.

I saw no sign of my mare, which was troubling since Crow is a bold-looking black and white creature and almost as big as Jon's Ronin. There was something in the air that caused me to wrinkle my nose and I hoped that I wasn't about to find something really foul on the edges of the bordermarsh, like a partially eaten, fae-ravished corpse. It smelled like sulfur and despite the fact that I was approaching someplace that looked Wyld-touched, my first thought was _demons_.

I wasn't proven wrong. About four steps into the bordermarsh I almost tripped over a dead man. He had an arm that looked like a lobster claw, some sort of belt made from ugly twisted chunks of orichalcum and soulsteel and the most unfortunate face I'd ever laid eyes on. A tiny golden pendant made in the shape of Liger, The Green Sun of Malfeas confirmed my suspicions.

Not a whole lot of people are really familiar with Infernals, not even in the Division of Secrets. I'd never actually run into one myself before, and was a bit thankful that my first encounter was with a dead demonic Exalt rather than a living one.

I rolled the Infernal over, searched him for anything I could put into my pockets and was considering burning his corpse at the point when I heard what I _thought_ was a horse approaching.

The animal was roan-colored and decked out in red leather and brass which also bore the insignia of Liger, the Green Sun. It evaluated me warily and made a sound like a dying cat. I noticed that it had an awful lot of teeth for a horse, and that its hooves seemed to be made of metal.

I realized belatedly that my new orders had nothing whatsoever to do with the requisition I'd so diligently composed and sent. The worst part was, I'd been looking forward to being reunited with my own trustworthy mount and instead I was left staring into the soulless eyes of some kind of murderous Malfean beast that probably wore a four-legged form solely so it could hunt down and eat the unsuspecting.

"You've gotta be kidding." I groaned.

The demon horse waited, watching me. "I should get paid better for this!" I informed the Heavens.

Of course, there was no response.

Tetsuo

Anastacia came by The An-Tang Princess obnoxiously early in the morning when most of Harlotry was still fast asleep. I wasn't waiting for her there myself, of course, but I'd paid a local boy to keep an eye on her and inform me of when she arrived and how long she waited.

I'd also arranged to have a letter delivered to her home around mid-afternoon, after she returned from her little excursion into the city's underbelly. It stated simply that I was attending an afternoon lecture at The University given by one Professor Valen Riverborn, expert on all things First Age, and that she could meet me there after she took a bath.

I told Anastacia nothing of the astrologer persona I'd quickly cobbled together. If she came stomping after me as I expected she would, I wanted her to witness all of the scholars of the University attempting to impress the brilliant "Master Pherisu, Chief Lecturer, Department of Astrology" from the distant – and in fact, _nonexistent_ University of Chio. Anastacia clearly needed to be reminded that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself before she'd stop regarding me as a silly "boy" who needed her patronage. Pulling the wool over a whole pack of academics would help to restore the great Dorobo's slightly smudged reputation.

I arrived at the University around eleven in the morning and presented the proper letters of introduction which I'd gracefully forged as I enjoyed my breakfast. When the too-fresh ink on my papers attracted the scrutiny of one of the working students of the Astrology Department, I launched into a frantic recitation of confusing jargon and demanded to see someone important.

The poor boy immediately called for the Head of Astrology, who greeted me like an old friend and ushered me into her office. Before she had the opportunity to ask me any awkward questions, I placed two star charts in front of her that I'd copied entirely from memory. If I doubted the accuracy of my own work, Professor Elen did not.

"The Mask has moved?" She whispered fearfully, obviously understanding what that could mean.

"And continues to do so." I informed her. "The Dean of my University wants this information kept secret, but he underestimates how important it could be. I've risked much to bring you this information and I trust that you can keep it in confidence."

She immediately invited me to be her personal guest for as long as I remained in Nexus.

I gladly accepted a tour of the University and pretended to be very interested in the facilities. In truth, I was looking for the suspicious Chosen of Serenity that I'd tussled with the previous day... but either he didn't make an appearance or he did so under a false face.

Sidereals are exceptionally good at manufacturing such disguises, and it's generally safe to assume that if they know someone is looking for them, they'll simply go about their business as 'someone else'. I paid very little attention to what my suspects looked like physically and instead considered the charts they were examining or the books they were reading.

Even still, I got the distinct impression that my quarry had done the smart thing and took off before I could unmask him. As I listened to Professor Elen talking about one of her better students, the mousy, disorganized little man that I'd seen on my first excursion to the University library came into the room.

He was Professor Valen Riverborn, and if anyone wanted to hear his lecture on legendary swords, it would begin in thirty minutes.

As he brushed past me, presumably to go prepare... I caught hold of his peculiar secret once again.

_He knew_.

He knew something at any rate, but I still couldn't ascertain _what_.

I convinced Professor Elen that I was very interested in hearing Professor Riverborn's lecture and she immediately offered to accompany me. She then went on at length about what a brilliant scholar he was in a tone that somewhat suggested that she actually thought he was a hack – or a writer of fiction.

Several times during Professor Riverborn's lecture, I caught her yawning or otherwise looking disinterested. Apparently, Professor Elen had very little appreciation for the finer points of metallurgy or ancient smelting techniques. After an hour, she excused herself when one of her students appeared hovering like a specter in the doorway and I had no doubt that she would be racing back to her office so that she could pore over her own charts and confirm the validity of the shocking secret I'd handed her.

But that didn't matter to me. I didn't even particularly care if Anastacia arrived just in time to see Professor Elen unmask me for a fraud. I was absolutely enthralled.

Prone to leaping from one tangent to the next, Professor Riverborn had answered a simple question from a student about a famous Southern smith who always worked blindfolded... and then got carried away on something he called _The Heaven Sent Sword_.

There was a common Eastern folk song by the same name about a boy given a sword from Heaven. As the bards told the tale, "Young Munno" killed a demon, which shattered the blade he had been given, and ultimately retired into obscurity.

According to Professor Riverborn, however, Munno's slaying of the demon Iyutha was not the story's end. In fact, it was only_ after_ the Heaven-Sent Sword was shattered that things began to get _very _interesting. Apparently, despite the fact that he'd received The Heaven-Sent Sword from a mysterious man who might well have been a God in disguise, Munno had not desired to pick up any of the pieces of his blade when it shattered. He'd left them on the battlefield and departed, never to be seen by anyone credible again.

Seven shards of the Heaven-Sent Sword were collected by onlookers and they spread throughout Creation with Munno's legend. They were passed from hand to hand as mere curiosities with no real value whatsoever. Then, a mere five years past, astrologers had begun observing peculiar changes in the constellation of The Sword which had lead them to believe that Heaven wanted Munno's blade reforged. Eight months ago, word had come from An-Tang of Iyutha's return. There was a demon on the loose with no readily identifiable master. Creation was clearly in peril and the shards of Munno's blade were all unaccounted for.

The Sword still behaved erratically, spinning like a compass as if it could not decide where the danger it sensed was coming from. And now, as I'd already witnessed myself, The Mask was also moving.

I smiled slighty, thinking how frustrated Professor Elen would be when she discovered that she'd left the lecture only minutes before a piece of the troubling puzzle I'd lain on her desk had been revealed. The kind of secret that could cause a simple sword, even a demon-slaying one, to shift Fate itself sent my mind whirling. I had to find it!

Professor Riverborn glanced at the clock and clapped his hands together. "Well, I suppose that's time!" He announced. "Any questions?"

I had more than a few, but I wasn't going to ask them until I could get Professor Riverborn alone. Of course, that was when Anastacia drifted into the lecture hall looking extremely annoyed.

I'd almost forgotten about her. _Almost._

I stood up and cleared my throat so that Professor Riverborn would notice me. Professor Elen had already introduced the two of us, which was exactly what I'd hoped she would do.

"Ah! Scholars, permit me to introduce Master Pherisu, Chief Lecturer of Astrology from the University of... Chio, was it?" Professor Riverborn paused. "I wasn't aware that Chio had a University."

"It's very small and not quite as respectable as this august institution." I told him. "In fact, I'm the only Lecturer in my Department. I also teach History. And I sometimes oversee the library too."

That remark drew laughter from a few of the older Professors sitting in the front row.

"Bah, you're still very young, Master Pherisu! You'll get there in time!" One of them advised me, turning around. "We astrologers are _always _under-appreciated, at least until we turn out to be right!"

"I suppose that's true." I replied, not missing a beat.

Anastacia stared at me with an expression that was two parts alarm and one part amusement. Very subtly, I adjusted the sleeves of my shirt to show her that I was wearing both of my cufflinks.

"So, you have a question?" Professor Riverborn reminded me.

"You mentioned that The Sword continues to move erratically, challenging astrologers to read its meaning. But what of the other constellations? Specifically, those constellations that the stars of The Sword are also part of. Such as The Mask?"

A nondescript young student in the front row nearly lost his seat and excused himself suddenly. He was too far away for me to draw a secret from him, but I suspected that he was probably a Sidereal. Two Professors immediately followed him, and then another student jumped up and left.

_More_ Sidereals? What were they up to?

"You are _very _sharp, Master Pherisu." A voice laughed.

A murmur of surprise raced through the audience.

I didn't realize who had spoken until I turned around. A man was sitting on the balcony above my head. When he stood, I wondered how I'd missed him before. He was one of the four Solars I'd seen sharing breakfast at The Divine Peach. The others called him "Veritas" and when I'd first caught sight of him, I might have confused him with any other bookish savant in Creation.

But not then.

The Solar was still dressed in all white, but he'd traded his monk-like attire for a spectacular flowing robe with brilliant blue and gold accents, a pair of intricately crafted artifact gloves, and a cloak which made him look like the old "Emissary" of Nexus. But as he lowered his hood and revealed the hearthstone circlet that he wore... I felt my heart actually skip a beat.

The circlet bore the unmistakable symbol of the Twilight Caste and was set with a polished black stone. Though he wore it like a common piece of jewelry, I realized that it was a fragment of the prison which had formerly held The Weeping Maiden, the same Primordial that had been released over Nexus. Of course I knew that The Emissary's fellow Solars had taken control of his city and were administering it openly... but somehow I hadn't prepared myself for exactly what that meant.

Fifteen hundred years ago, the Solars had ruled a civilization which rivaled Heaven itself in sophistication and power. They'd been hunted for more than a century since they'd begun reincarnating, but now, for the very first time... _they were back in control. _And as I knew well from my childhood history lessons, they'd been called _Lawgivers _for a reason.

All of the students and every University professor stared in awe at the Solar. In fairness, there wasn't any other way to look at him. The man was spectacularly _terrifying_.

"Goodness! I... I wasn't expecting you, Lord Veritas." Professor Riverborn bowed very low.

"Sun-in-Glory! Val, how many times have I asked you not to call me that?" The Solar scolded him. "And I may be very busy, but I can always find the time to take advantage our fine University. This place is the gem of Nexus and more people ought to support it." Then he turned back to me.

"So what do you know of The Mask?" He pressed.

"Nothing at all." I admitted.

"Well, either you're a worthless astrologer or that's a_ lie._" He remarked. "You don't think that the movement of The Mask signifies conspiracy?" He demanded.

I didn't want to answer him, but I felt compelled. I avoided his gaze as he casually floated down from his private booth and landed with no more sound than a cat directly in front of me. I'd resisted Charms like the one that he was using on me before, but I couldn't have fought off that Solar if I'd had a sword in my hand. When his eyes met my own, I felt unbearably tiny and insignificant.

"The Mask has moved!" I blurted out. "It's moved twice in the last three weeks and it's still moving even now. Two stars have gone out. And... well, if it's pattern as I've observed continues, there's a fair chance that it will completely destroy itself. The whole constellation will become part of The Sword."

"That could mean war. Revolution." The old astrology professor who'd encouraged me before seemed disturbed to hear what I had learned. "But on such a scale? It would have to be the Realm itself in danger!"

Anastacia seemed lost in thought, and I wondered for a moment just how much she'd already known. Who was she really?

The Solar said nothing, or at least nothing that most of the room heard. But he was still standing very close to me, so I caught the word "Sidereals".

That surprised me. Generally speaking, most people in Creation, Exalts included, don't know that Sidereals exist. But then again, there wasn't much in Heaven or Creation which was beyond the formidable intellect of a Twilight Caste Solar. Given enough time, it was safe to assume that Veritas could literally learn _anything _he put his mind to.

Professor Riverborn cleared his throat. "I think we've touched upon a subject deserving of its own debate. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon, when we've all had some time to think it over?"

Most of the Professors seemed to approve of his suggestion. At very least, they were quick to gather their belongings and leave, furtively glancing at Veritas, who stood with his arms crossed behind me, a very grave expression on his face.

"I'll be going." I excused myself as Professor Riverborn fairly drug Anastacia out the door.

Veritas clapped his hand down on my shoulder. His grip was like iron and I grimaced as he turned me around to face him. "Now I'm only going to warn you once! I dislike secrets, astrologer!" He informed me. "Particularly ones with potentially devastating consequences!"

"I'm just theorizing!" I lied. "I don't actually have any_ evidence _of anything!"

"This conversation is becoming tiresome." He warned me.

"Well, I can't tell you what I don't know!" I protested.

"But you _will _tell me what you do know." The Solar ordered. I grimaced and struggled but it was no use. If the Chosen of Serenity I'd snuck up on before had outclassed me physically, when it came to sheer willpower, Veritas could have thrown _him_ around like a rag doll. My gut told me not to face him, but I still turned how he wanted me to and looked right in his eyes. They burned with the light of the sun.

I found myself compelled to tell Veritas everything I knew, including how I'd already tussled with one Sidereal. I told him about the Audit in Heaven and the business of the _Celo Viatori _butfortunately managed to avoid mentioning my father's name or the fact that I was Dorobo. Nevertheless, I still felt horribly abused when Twilight Caste finally let me go.

I decided that I liked the second Solar I'd ever met marginally less than I liked the first. Maybe I wouldn't need stitches, but my reservoir of dirty little secrets which was usually bubbling over had been emptied and scoured completely clean.

And yet... I had to appreciate his skill. It would be necessary for me to stay on my toes if I intended to draw any secrets out of him. An old adage came to mind, and I smiled slightly despite myself.

_The bigger they are, the harder they fall._

It seemed particularly appropriate in reference to Solars. I decided to keep it in mind and wait for the opportunity to throw it out as a nice little barbed taunt.

Composing myself as well as I could, I went out the same doors Professor Riverborn had escorted Anastacia through. She was waiting for me on a bench near the door and apparently guessed from the expression on my face that whatever had just happened to me was something I did not want to talk about.

At first, I thought she intended to flounce away and leave me standing in the hall alone, but then she looped her arm in mine. "Shall we go for dinner?" She suggested.

"How much do you know about astrology?" I asked her.

"Nothing." She lied, slipping around behind me. I swore I felt a knife brush my back.

I caught Anastacia's wrist and threw her up against the wall, maybe a little more forcefully than I should have.

"Damnit, we have a business arrangement! Why do you _insist _upon tormenting me?" I demanded.

"Shut up, Dorobo!" She retorted. "You wouldn't have it any other way!"

"You think I like working for someone I don't trust? You think I want to wait for you to deliver when I know damn well that you _might_ be planning to throw me to a God who's already sworn to kill me?" I protested. "This is a matter of _necessity_! You need _me _to get Ereshkigal! But I have other contacts, Gods even! I could use _any of them_ to get into Yu-Shan!" I reminded her. That wasn't exactly true, of course, but it was true enough. Though the Audit had scared a lot of my usual cronies straight, if I could get my hands on some quintessence, I could still play a few of them.

"But is that what you really want?" Anastacia teased. "To quit when you're starting to get ahead?"

I tried to ignore her mischievous grin as she held up my cufflink. I'd only just reclaimed it from her and she'd already taken it again! "This business of yours with Ereshkigal is probably going to get us both killed!"

"Not a chance." She smirked. "If I was just looking for a sacrifice, I would have told you a story to peak your interest and we'd already be on our way to Sijan. I have resources, Dorobo... resources that you lack. And _you _have skills that I need. If I didn't challenge you, I'd have no way of knowing if you were going to be a _waste_ or an _investment_."

"I'm my own master, woman!" I warned her. "Not your plaything!"

Anastacia wrinkled her nose with distaste and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Well, I won't pretend not to be disappointed!" She informed me. "With the way you tore my corset last night, I was rather hoping I could convince you to do away with the rest of my clothes."

"So we've reached that part of the game, have we?" I smiled slightly.

"You think this is a game?" Anastacia wondered.

"_Everything_ is a game. And it's always the same game. It's about what you know and what you don't." I replied.

"So what do you know?" She asked.

"I know that you're trying to control me." I replied.

"And what don't you know?" She pressed.

"I don't know if I want to make you _stop_." I admitted.

Anastacia gave me another infuriating look and in response I did exactly what she must have known I would.

I kissed her.

Her lips tasted like celestial wine, and her eyes spoke of all of the secrets she was still keeping from me. Anastacia was obviously pleased that I'd taken the initiative physically and deposited my cufflink in the palm of my right hand, a clear gesture of surrender.

"Ahem?" Professor Riverborn cleared his throat and I realized belatedly that the two of us were blocking the door to his office.

I tried not to react badly as I suddenly gleaned a new secret from Anastacia, one that made me feel a little dizzy with its magnitude. If she was not an astrologer herself, she had a _very_ good one in her employ.

_She'd already known about The Mask._


	8. Chapter 8 - Estelle

Estelle

The Fangs of Heaven were camped along the river not far from the city. Missions for Oversight had led me into dozens of military encampments in the past and there was nothing particularly unique or impressive about Takamori Saito's little operation. I learned that the Talonlord who drug us in was called Ozai, and he seemed very intent on building a reputation for himself.

At very least, Ozai reacted poorly when he was informed that Dragonlord Saito was "too busy" to see him. He left the two of us under guard and stomped off in a huff. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a familiar silhouette and swallowed the stream of curse words that almost escaped me. Standing outside of Saito's command tent with his arms crossed and a particularly annoyed expression on his face was my former master, Tepet Genji.

Apparently Saito wasn't interested in playing nice with anyone.

I wished belatedly that I'd crafted a Resplendent Destiny that I could use, but the only mask I could reasonably don was that of "Kit Waylay" which wouldn't serve to get Munno or myself out of trouble. To make matters worse, Munno didn't know what Resplendent Destinies actually were and my orders from Oversight had not given me permission to explain to him exactly how I changed my face and ensured that I was "forgotten" so easily. It was unlikely that Genji would recognize me as Kit, but Munno could potentially alert him the truth. That would mean Paradox for certain.

"Munno, Tepet Genji has followed us." I informed him, pointing in the direction of the Dragonlord's tent.

He observed what I pointed out and raised an eyebrow in my direction but said nothing.

"He won't recognize me as Kit." I continued. "And you can't tell him that I'm the same person who was traveling with him before."

"I understand." Munno nodded slightly and I sighed in relief. He seemed to accept what I was asking of him without an explanation, and that was more than I'd hoped for.

Thirty minutes later, Genji was admitted to the Dragonlord's tent. They talked for a short while and he stomped out, looking very irritated. Talonlord Ozai was brought in, and then a soldier came for Munno and myself.

Dragonlord Saito was an Earth-Aspect with a face that looked like chiseled granite. He stood a head taller than everyone except Munno, and smiled slightly as the two of us were brought before him.

"Heaven-Sent Munno, I presume?" The Dragonlord observed.

Munno nodded quietly, a little irritated by the flowery title attached to his name.

Our hands were immediately untied.

"You're free to go. I'm sorry that you were treated so poorly by my men." The Dragonlord apologized. "From what I've heard, it seems that you were not willfully aiding the Anathema, but only trying to protect a woman you believed was in distress."

"Well..." Munno began.

I elbowed him in the ribs. Though I usually found Munno's honesty endearing, the last thing I needed was him confessing to Saito that he _had _guessed Windswept Rhapsody's real identity... and had intended to help her anyway. "Thank you for your understanding, Dragonlord." I bowed politely.

"Although there is something else I am curious about." The Dragonlord paused. "The city is full of whispers about you two. Are you really planning to reforge the Heaven-Sent Sword?"

"Yes. I have a piece of it here." Munno emptied his medicine pouch into the palm of his hand and held out the shard for the Dragonlord to see.

"May I?" He wondered.

Munno nodded. The Dragonlord picked up the shard and examined it for a moment. "Hm." He mused. "I've never seen anything like it. No maker's mark?"

"There never was one. The man who helped me forge this blade never gave his name." Munno explained. "These days I am afraid that I can barely remember what he looked like. He came in the middle of the night and he forbade me fro seeing his secret technique."

"Heh." The Dragonlord smiled slightly. "Sounds like Masamune and Murasame to me."

I'd never heard either name before.

Evidently Munno had. He rolled his eyes. "Masamune and Murasame are characters from a children's story." He explained. "You've never heard of them? The Smiths of Round-Top Mountain? They're known for making magical swords."

"You've heard about my childhood." I reminded him. "I think it's safe to say I missed out on a lot."

"Well, you may regard the Smiths as fictional, but someone actually does live up there. My patrols have noticed plumes of smoke rising from the trees on the eastern face of that mountain on more than one occasion." Saito informed us. "It's across the river and to the north if you want to make the trip. You could make it there and back in three or four days."

"I don't know." Munno admitted. "That's a lot of time to lose looking for someone who probably doesn't exist."

"Such a skeptic!" Genji laughed. Though he had not been invited in to Saito's tent, he'd obviously been listening in on our conversation for some time. "Being that _you _are a fictional character yourself, Munno... one would think that you might have a little more _faith._"

Munno looked somewhat embarrassed, and from the expression on Saito's face I could tell that he was about to order Genji out. But I was curious.

"I don't suppose you know anything about these "Smiths", stranger?" I put my hands on my hips.

"As a matter of fact, I'm an expert in folklore." Genji replied. "I find it fascinating, especially when it happens to be based in truth. And I think that Dragonlord Saito is right. If you want to reforge the Heaven-Sent sword, you'll need Masamune and Murasame. If they're real, they're supposed to be the best swordmakers in Creation. The trouble is, they don't deal in jade. They work for undisclosed favors."

"Sounds dangerous." I grimaced. What it sounded like to me was "politics as usual" in Yu-Shan and I wondered briefly if the legendary Smiths of Round-Top Mountain might Gods or Sidereals that I knew. It would certainly help our bargaining at any rate.

"I suppose you want to come with us then." Munno decided, before I could tell Genji to go away.

I swallowed my pride and let him take the lead.

"Why, yes, actually!" Genji smiled. "Although I must confess, I'm very curious as to what caused your change of heart. The last we spoke, I was under the impression that you weren't interested in re-forging the Heaven-Sent sword."

"I did not believe it was possible." Munno admitted. "After you left, my friend convinced me otherwise." He gestured to me. "This is Estelle. I've known her for five years."

As Munno said that, I noticed that it did not sound like a lie. While it was true that I had been spying on him for a long while, I'd only introduced myself to him days ago and I could not recall telling him how long I'd actually been watching him. A faint miasma of something in the air was beginning to worry me. It reminded me of the smell that always preceded a storm, and I knew right away what it meant.

"And I don't suppose either of you have any idea what became of my servant?" Genji pressed.

"No." Munno shook his head. I said nothing myself, feeling an all too familiar sharp pinch.

_Paradox_.

Genji was onto me!

Saito cleared his throat. "I don't suppose you would like a military escort?"

"No!" All of us shouted at the same time. The Dragonlord gave us a peculiar look and slowly held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Don't trouble yourself, Dragonlord." I soothed. "It would be too much of an imposition." Just in case he didn't find my words convincing, I layered them with a very good Charm.

"Very well." He sighed, still looking a little put-off. "I was just trying to be helpful."

Without any further trouble, we returned to our accommodations in town, though I got a sinking feeling that the Dragonlord's men were still watching us. Genji evidentially felt the same and when I went to check on our animals, I caught him summoning up a little familiar spirit.

He ordered the creature to keep an eye on Saito's spies and it fluttered away.

Perhaps Genji would be useful after all. If I'd learned anything in the time I'd spent posing as his servant, it was that he was not easily discouraged.

"You're worried about Genji." Munno observed as I came back into the common room of the inn. The proprietor, the bartender, and several girls were working to pick up the wreckage of Rhapsody's interrupted revelry. If they thought poorly of the two of us for returning after we'd been involved in the whole mess earlier, they said nothing. I suspected that Saito had sent word ahead of us.

"He might be trouble." I admitted.

"He might also be helpful." Munno reminded me.

"Why do you have so much faith in everyone?" I demanded.

"Why do you always suspect the worst?" He retorted.

I sighed in defeat. "You're right, Munno. As usual."

In the morning, both Munno and Genji were dressed and ready to depart before I'd rolled my way out of bed. I ordered some coffee and nursed it at the bar, trying to ignore how my two traveling companions were suddenly carrying on like old friends. Apparently, back in his adventuring days, Munno had briefly traveled with a Dragonblooded sorceress called Hideyo Haya.

As obsessed as he was with the legend of the Heaven-Sent Sword, Genji was even more fixated on learning everything he could about Hideyo Haya. She was mother and he'd never met her. His mission re-tracing her footsteps across Creation had sent him into the depths of a fae-infested manse and had even gotten him captured by Nexus's infamous Solars. When I'd first met him myself, Genji had confessed to me that his entire entourage had abandoned him. They preferred to walk back to Lookshy and face the wrath of his father rather than continue to follow their master on his "wild goose chase".

But what if Genji was actually supposed to find what he was looking for? What if Fate was moving _him_ in ways that I hadn't considered? I decided to have a good look at the stars as soon as I found an opportunity. If nothing else, it wound keep me from getting surprised so often.

The three of us rode all day up into the foothills of Round-Top Mountain. Around noon, Genji's familiar spirit reported to its master and he informed us that Dragonlord Saito's men were no longer watching us. Apparently, there'd been another sighting of Windswept Rhapsody and all of the Fangs of Heaven were being recalled to hunt down the Anathema.

Munno looked a little uneasy as Genji told us the "good news", but he said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. As Saito had promised, there was a plume of smoke rising from the eastern face of Round-Top Mountain.

"I bet it's a hermit living up there!" I joked, shoving Munno a little. "An old hermit with no teeth who hasn't bathed in twenty years!"

Genji looked annoyed with me, but he said nothing. I considered asking him to reiterate the legend of the Smiths so that I would have some better idea of what we were up against, Then I decided that even the comfort of being well-prepared wasn't worth the irritation of listening him talk for hours on end.

After the sun went down, we camped near a little creek. While Munno answered more of Genji's incessant questions about his mother and made some tea, I slipped off into the trees to have a "bath". As soon as I was certain that neither of them were watching me, I found a comfortable place to sit and began composing a letter to a friend of mine in The Division of Secrets.

As I'd confessed to Munno, my grasp of the written word was a little precarious. Worse still, I'd never been able to ink a single prayer strip without getting black all over my hands and my clothing. Because I knew that sloppy requests always landed right in someone's rubbish bin, I took my time and copied everything over and over until I was sure I'd rooted out most of my misspellings.

When I was finished describing my current situation in detail, I requested information on Masamune and Murasame and asked if someone would peek at what the Loom had to say about Munno and Genji. Normally, requesting access to the Loom of Fate was something that no one of my pay grade would dare to do, but I made sure to add that I was on a mission for Oversight, which gave me considerable flexibility.

My mailbox diligently appeared as I called for it. There were new orders for me tucked inside and I decided to take a look at them before I sent off the whole mess of questions I'd been stewing over.

The folded paper was marked, not with Oversight's ominous black seal, but with the familiar blue and gold insignia of the Cerulean Lute. I opened up the crisp cream paper and stared in disbelief at the message, which was written in exquisite calligraphy that made me even more painfully aware of my ineptitude with a brush. It was from the head of my Division, Yaogin The Fair.

There was a _huge _Audit taking place in Yu-Shan! Sidereals and Gods from every division had been implicated in some sort huge Celestial smuggling ring. The list of names included was absolutely mind-boggling. From the looks of things, whatever was going on involved half of the most powerful Gods in the Bureau of Destiny!

I took a few deep breaths and slowly removed my meticulously composed letter from my mailbox, tearing it into several pieces. There was no use in asking favors from anyone in The Forbidding Manse of Ivy if Nara-O himself was about to be mined for starmetal. I wondered briefly if my Oversight superior Whisper knew what was going on and I suspected that her name would probably appear on the Audit list soon enough.

What _she _was up to, only Jupiter ever knew.

Still, the news of the pending Audit wasn't the only black cloud that hung over me. I'd noticed as I considered the positions of the stars that the constellation of The Mask was not sitting where it should have been. A conspiracy powerful enough to move The Mask was something I didn't even want to imagine. The Paradox that would be created by willfully changing the Heavens in such a dramatic manner would be sure to draw the attention of the Incarnae themselves.

I must have looked uneasy when I made it back to Munno and Genji. They both gave me an odd look, but neither of them asked what I was thinking.

We continued up the mountain the following day. It was late afternoon when we reached the source of the smoke, a little thatch-roof cottage that sat in a clearing filled with wildflowers. A crystal clear creek filled with unusual-shaped glacial rocks ran through the trees, encircling the cottage on its little green island. Birds chirped, and two iridescent blue butterflies immediately landed on Genji's head.

Genji swatted at the butterflies and scowled, but not for very long. An albino raven was sitting on a tree branch very near to him. It made a horrible loud croak and Genji nearly fell off his horse. The raven landed on Munno's shoulder and pecked at his medicine pouch once very deliberatively before winging away.

"That was strange." Genji observed. Another butterfly landed on him.

"I think we've come to the right place." Munno replied. He certainly looked comfortable at any rate, not that I blamed him. I felt remarkably comfortable myself.

The little clearing was even more idyllic than Munno's beloved retreat if such a thing was possible and I noticed how he smiled when he heard the clang of a blacksmith's hammer. A small herd of dairy goats and and a flock of ruddy-colored chickens parted before us as we approached the smith's workshop, a very large circular barn with a pointed roof and a strange sign over the door.

Ten swords had been placed with their pommels touching and their blades pointed out. An eleventh sword had been made into a circle that held all the others. What it looked like was a radiant rising sun made out of steel. I dismounted from my horse and Genji did the same. Munno handed me the reins of his mule and slowly approached the barn.

"I don't believe it!" Genji exclaimed. "Why, it's just like the story!"

My right hand drifted towards the hilt of Memory. Though I didn't want to draw my swords if I didn't have to, a troubling thought had just occurred to me. In the time that I'd served the fae, I'd learned that some had an infatuation with stories, even going so far as to re-create fictitious places as a way of luring in their victims. Houses made of cake and poor captured princesses seemed to be common themes, but a fae lord of sufficient power could certainly convince the three of us that we were waltzing right into the setting of a folktale if he or she wished to.

The albino raven landed on the roof of the barn and croaked at us again. Then it flew inside through a hole in the thatch. The steady pounding stopped, and the doors to the barn slowly opened. I didn't get much of a glimpse inside, but I did notice that the walls were plastered with thousands of prayer strips.

Whatever the Smiths of Round-Top Mountain were doing in their barn, they were definitely worried that it might attract the attention of malevolent forces.

A woman stepped out to meet us. She was dressed in a leather apron and her hands were wrapped in bandages. Tall and thin as she was, with a pair of gold glasses perched on her nose and a sweat-stained silk scarf tying back her long white hair... she looked more like a librarian or a schoolteacher than a blacksmith. Her age was impossible to determine, but I would have guessed her to be forty or even older if her pale skin hadn't been so clear and her movements so graceful. Picking up a towel that hung on a hook inside of her barn, she wiped her face and slipped into a white hapi coat that bore the same circular sword design as her sign.

"Well now!" She observed, evaluating each of us in turn. "Travelers! You're a long way from the road! I hate to be the one to tell you this, but if you're headed to Great Forks you should have turned _right _when you passed that cherry orchard about four miles back!"

"Actually." Munno interrupted. "We've come to ask you something." He reached into his medicine pouch and produced the shard of the Heaven-Sent Sword. He passed it to the woman who evaluated it for a moment and then smiled.

"The Heaven-Sent Sword, eh?" She observed. "You must be Munno."

"How did you know?" Genji demanded.

"The alloy. It's unmistakable. Only been done once, and there's a good reason for that. My Murasame will be able to tell you more." She replied. "Let's go inside and have some tea!"

"So you are Masamune? The Masamune from the legends?" Genji wondered as we sat down inside the little cottage. A man with a very long nose came to sit with us. He looked young and old at the same time just as the woman did and he was dressed in a simple blue robe with distinctive silver embroidery that made me suspect that he was a sorcerer. I noticed that his eyes were pinkish-colored and that his hair was scattered with feathers, but I didn't say anything. If Genji or Munno hadn't noticed we were sitting with the same albino raven from earlier, there was no reason to let them know.

"Oh my, _legends_!" Masamune chuckled. "Is that what they call it now when your neighbors talk about you? In my day we called it "gossip"! But yes, if you must know, I am Masamune Chiasa. And this is my partner, Murasame Renji."

"I know you?" Munno eyed Murasame suspiciously. It wasn't really a question.

"We've met before... although it's been many, many years. To be honest, I didn't realize how many." Murasame laughed. "But yes, Munno. I helped you forge the Heaven-Sent Sword."

Genji didn't say the word "impossible", but I saw him thinking it. If Murasame had been an old man when Munno was a boy, he should have been long dead. I suspected that Genji guessed what I already had... that Murasame was a Lunar. Even still, he held his tongue, although I noticed that he was staring at Masamune in a particularly rude manner. Apparently, he'd also worked out what the curious sword sign on their barn and on the back of Masamune's coat actually meant.

The Smiths of Round-Top Mountain were Anathema.

"Can it be repaired?" Munno asked.

"From such a little piece?" Murasame shook his head. "Don't be absurd!"

Munno's face fell.

"We'll just have to make you a new one!" Murasame reassured him with a mischievous smirk.

"Looks like I'd better go fire up the plasma furnace!" Masamune clapped her hands together. "I'll be right back!"

"I do appreciate your help." Munno paused. "But... if you don't mind my asking, I was told there would be a price."

"There always is." Murasame nodded solemnly.

"May I have a moment, Munno?" Genji interrupted. Murasame nodded with a slight smile and the two of them stepped outside. I didn't have to guess what Genji was going to tell him, but I also knew how Munno would react.

Murasame poured me some more tea and I sipped it. "I see you carry a sword yourself. Two of them, in fact!" He remarked, gesturing to Thought and Memory. "May I see?"

I didn't see what harm it would do, and so I unsheathed my blades and set them on the table between us.

"Mm." Murasame observed. "Thousand Stars. High First Age. Exquisite craftsmanship! Masamune will be tickled to see these. She does so love the work of the old masters."

"You sure know your swords." I replied, though it sounded like an inane thing to say.

"Of course we do!" Murasame replied. "If you want to be _the best_..."

He didn't finish what he was about to say. Munno had stomped back into the cottage, throwing the door a little more forcefully than he probably should have. Genji followed him, looking thoroughly subdued. Though he could have easily hopped on his horse and rode back to Dragonlord Saito with news of the Anathema we'd discovered, Genji sat down and nursed his tea instead. I noticed, however, that he did not take his eyes off of Murasame for more than a heartbeat.

As she'd promised she would, Masamune soon returned. The forge was ready, she informed us, and it was best to get started as soon as possible. We followed the Smiths into their workshop. It was much bigger on the inside and I stared in bewilderment at all of the thousands of prayer strips. Some were so old that I could barely read them and they were inscribed to every God whose name I'd ever heard whispered. Unsurprisingly, an awful lot of them called for the aid of Luna or The Unconquered Sun. Genji cursed incoherently as his fingertips brushed a prayer strip near the door.

"I know this calligraphy!" He exclaimed. "My mother wrote this!"

"Hm. Ah!" Masamune studied the prayer he pointed to. "Hideyo Haya! Yes, I remember her! Your mother, eh? I think I can see the resemblance!"

"She was here?" Genji pressed.

"About twenty years ago, yes." Masamune nodded. "She wanted to know how to find The Scarlet Empress's sword."

"The Scarlet Empress's sword?" Genji echoed incredulously. "What did you tell her?"

"Mm. Rumors. I'm afraid that's all I knew at the time. It seemed odd to me that she was so eager to find it. It was forged by Fu Yan Win. Early Shogunate. Bad balance, I suspect. The jade's probably worth more than the blade is." Masamune explained.

"I do remember her lovely little daiklave." Murasame added. "About two-hundred and fifty years old at the time. Cathak Hoshi. Excellent work. All it really needed was an edge."

"Would you... would you put an edge on my blade?" Genji asked.

"Certainly!" Masamune agreed. "And don't worry, no charge. It's a mercy to the sword, that's what it is! I'd be glad to do it."

Genji was gone for a few moments and when he returned with his sword, he also carried a small calligraphy box. He opened it and Murasame ogled his brushes like a child looking through the window of a toy store. As Masamune took a look at Genji's sword, he picked up his brushes and inked a short prayer to Sextes Jylis, The Dragon of Wood in fine green ink.

Genji's calligraphy was everything mine could never hope to be and I smiled slightly. Though he would never guess it, one of his beautiful prayers was kept in a frame in the reception room of the main office of the Bureau of Seasons in Yu-Shan.

"Beautiful! Look at this, dear!" Murasame crowed. He seized the prayer strip and skipped over to Masamune, who was working Genji's blade on her grinding wheel. She observed the prayer with a slight smile and Murasame tacked it to the wall just below the prayer that Genji's mother had written twenty years ago.

"I am curious." Munno admitted. "What are all the prayer strips for?"

"Faith is very important." Murasame explained. "Forging swords is a delicate process. The heat and the cooling must be _perfectly_ controlled! The steel and the other metals, _perfectly_ folded! And _perfection _is not the preserve of mankind! We are all imperfect beings, even the best of us!"

"The Gods aren't perfect either." I remarked, realizing belatedly that I probably shouldn't have said something like that aloud.

"Most of them, no. But all of them _together_? From the littlest rice god all the way up to the Unconquered Sun?"

It did bear consideration. Even Genji didn't seem to have the heart to protest.

Humming to himself, Murasame began to toss stacks of wood, pieces of metal and all kinds of half-finished projects out the front doors of the barn. Munno and I helped him with the cleaning, and then Genji stepped in to lend a hand. When we'd all finished, I realized that there was a familiar design on the stone floor of the workshop, a prayer wheel! The whole building was a prayer wheel!

Finished with Genji's sword, Masamune handed him the blade wrapped in a length of white linen. He stared at it for a long while in silence. Then the two smiths moved to the center of their workshop and lifted up the middle portion of the floor. A cloud of steam poured out of the hole and there was a horrible mechanical grinding sound as a huge furnace rose up out of the ground.

The smell that it gave off was very distinctive, almost like incense mixed into raw metal.

"May I have the shard?" Masamune asked. She put on a beautiful pair of golden metal gloves set with hearthstones the color of molten steel.

Munno nodded and gave it to her. Taking up a smelting ladle, she held it into the furnace until it began to melt. The shard cast rainbows all around the room, like a piece of glass held up to the light of the sun.

Hours passed. All of us watched in awe. There was nothing else we could do. I'd seen some pretty impressive things living in Yu-Shan, but there was something about the way that Masamune and Murasame worked which simply defied everything I thought I knew about how swords were made.

After melting the shard of the Heaven-Sent Sword, Masamune poured it into a mold filled with molten starmetal. With her gloves still on, she ran her hands through the metal, shaping it. As the alloy began to solidify, she returned it to her furnace. When it was hot enough to be poured again, she put it into a larger mold with a quantity of moonsilver.

Murasame whispered a prayer, and Masamune passed the still-hot blade to him. The moonsilver whipped and thrashed like a living thing trying to escape. He plunged it into a trough of water, reciting familiar-sounding words under his breath. An invisible wind whipped up all around us and I realized that Murasame was working sorcery. The water froze across the surface, and the sword fell still.

Masamune broke the ice and returned the blade it to her furnace. She melted it down completely for the third time, pouring a small portion of the Heaven-Sent Sword, starmetal and moonsilver into yet another mold filled with liquid orichalcum.

"All right." Murasame turned to us. "This is the part that you can't watch."

Munno nodded solemnly. From the expression on his face, it was obvious that he'd been expecting to hear exactly that. The three of us obediently left the barn. Genji seemed relieved, I supposed because it was easier for him _not _to lash out against the Anathema if they hadn't actually _proven _that they were what he knew they had to be. I wondered if he'd caught Murasame working sorcery as I had, and then decided that watching Masamune work had probably kept him from noticing the Lunar's faintly flickering Caste Mark.

Munno paced as we waited for the Smiths to finish their work. It was nearly sundown, and I couldn't help but notice that the barn was beginning to glow very distinctly in the dark. The color of the light all around it was like the morning sun.

Then Munno stopped. He glanced at me once and the turned and started walking right back in the direction of the barn.

"Munno, stop!" Genji shouted.

Munno ignored him.

"Munno!" I protested.

He ignored me too.

I almost followed him right inside as he threw the doors open, but when they slammed shut in front of my face, I found that I didn't have the heart to push them.

His whole life, Munno had worked as a blacksmith without ever knowing how his famous sword had come into being. After forty years, I suspected that he had every right to be irritated about sitting outside as the blade was re-forged.

The sun went down and the stars came out. There was no moon, but the sky looked unusually bright.

It must have been midnight when Munno returned, carrying the Heaven-Sent Sword wrapped in a piece of white silk.

"Is it finished?" Genji wondered eagerly.

"Nearly." Munno nodded. "We have to take the blade to be consecrated."

"Well, the Abbey of Sextis Jylis isn't far away." Genji supplied. "Six days from Great Forks and we could be there."

Munno shook his head. "Masamune told me to go to a very specific temple in Nexus. She said that I would find the priest I needed sitting on the steps."

Although Nexus was still a long way off, I decided there was no sense in arguing with Munno. When he set his mind to something, it wasn't easy to dissuade him. I knew better than to ask him to explain what he'd seen inside Masamune's workshop, although it was obvious that it had changed him.

It occurred to me belatedly that I hadn't seen either of the swordmakers since before Munno had stormed in on their work. As I glanced back in the direction of their humble abode, I was not entirely surprised to discover that the house and everything around it was gone without a trace.

I sighed heavily in defeat. It was bad enough that Munno was still sympathetic towards Windswept Rhapsody, especially since she'd done nothing but get us into trouble. The last thing I needed was another Solar convincing him that Anathema were 'misunderstood', or worse yet, the saviors of all Creation.

"Did they say what the price of this work would be?" I asked Munno. His hand rested on the hilt of the Heaven-Sent Sword.

"Not exactly." He admitted.

"But you think you know?" I pressed.

"I think I know." He nodded.

"And it's a price you can pay?" Genji hazarded a guess. "I am a sorcerer, Munno. I know how these sorts of things go."

Munno hesitated. After a long moment of silence, he drew the sword from its wrappings and stared at blade which was _glowing_. Colors I'd never known steel to hold swam in its depths. It reminded me a little of starmetal, but it radiated warmth like sun-touched orichalcum.

"That is a _very _impressive sword." Genji admitted.

"I did not remember it being so heavy." Munno paused. "I don't think I'm strong enough to wield it."

"Then you'll have to get stronger." I informed him, gesturing to my own blades. "I'll train with you."

"I could use the exercise too." Genji added.

Munno didn't say anything at first, but the expression on his face told me he was thinking. When Genji went to check on his horse, he broke his silence.

"So... the sword is reforged now." Munno paused. "Does that mean your mission for Heaven is almost over?"

"Not a chance!" I informed him. "I'm with you until we kill that demon! And then I'm due for a vacation, so we'll celebrate together!"

He smiled slightly. "Sounds good."

A very strange feeling came over me. Traveling in Munno's company, it was so easy to let down my guard and simply assume that everything he said was honest and heartfelt because it always was.

But did Munno know more about what we were getting into than he was leading me to believe?


	9. Chapter 9 - Sam

Sam

The demon horse proved to be as mean as it looked, but it wasn't immune to my more powerful Charms and eventually I managed to climb onto its back. It clearly wanted to run, but I reined it in so that I could get accustomed to its peculiar gait before it threw me into a ditch. I noticed when it began to canter that the bordermarsh we were passing through started melting into a shadowland and then into a different bordermarsh. The way the creature moved defied all of my efforts at navigation and ultimately I gave him his head and let him decide where we needed to be going.

I got completely lost for three solid days. Just after dusk on the third day I found myself riding along a muddy road that looked familiar. I realized that I'd just crossed a minor tributary of the Gray River and that somehow the demon horse had taken almost all the way to Nexus. The city should have been weeks off, but apparently my Malfean mount wasn't limited by conventional distance or time. It was annoying, however, that he refused to set even one hoof in anything that resembled the natural world. As soon as I could feel my own Essence beginning to recover, he'd pull away with a canine sort of growl and take us deeper into the Wyld or into another shadowland.

The demon horse also wouldn't go near running water, but the sound of it nearby made me feel a bit better as we tramped across miles of dry, fractured ground littered with shards of bleached bone. I was considering dismounting and walking for awhile when I noticed another traveler across the creek in Creation. I couldn't make out his face with the sun setting behind him, but I would have recognized the big white stallion he was riding anywhere.

It was Ronin.

I didn't see any sign of Vivian, but I was willing to bet that the man I couldn't see clearly was Jon. He rode towards me very slowly, his hand on the hilt of a dagger tucked into his belt. It hadn't been very long since I'd last seen him wrapped in bandages. Viv's Charms had apparently worked wonders. Of course, there was more to it than that. The reality of his predicament had obviously sunk in, and now Jon knew he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating. He'd never been one to keep his head down, but there was something new in his eyes, a sense of purpose that was very worrying to me. I recognized it for what it was in a heartbeat.

Jon wasn't struggling as so many new Exalts did, wondering whether he was blessed or cursed. I was absolutely certain that if I called him "Anathema", he'd be more offended than afraid. In a frightfully short amount of time, he'd already started acting like a Solar.

"What are you riding?" Jon demanded, eying me suspiciously. Ronin stomped, throwing up a big cloud of dust. He was either trying to get away or spoiling for a fight with the demon horse, I wasn't sure which.

"A horse." I replied. The demon horse made a noise that sounded a bit like gargling broken glass. "Um, a horse-ish thing?" I suggested, enjoying the way Jon stared at me in confusion. Ronin's expression was priceless. He rolled his eyes way back, curled up his lip, pinned his ears and puffed out his chest like a nervous parrot. The demon horse growled at him and he hopped back a few paces.

Jon reined his mount and I whacked mine soundly between the ears. I'd learned early on that the demon horse didn't pay much attention to the bit in his mouth and there wasn't much else I could do to get his full attention.

"Do I know you?" Jon wondered.

"No." I lied.

"You seem familiar to me." He paused. Like someone I know."

"I've got that kind of face." I twitched slightly. Of course, Solars are always trouble, but the thing I like least about them is the fact that they're about three times more difficult to fool than normal people. Even my best Resplendent Destinies would take some serious wear and tear if I used them in close proximity to Jon.

"You look tired." I remarked casually, observing the dirt and sweat on his face and the way his bandages had begun to unravel. "Have you been riding long?"

"Days." Jon hesitated. He eyed my canteen. "Do you have any water? It's... somewhat inadvisable to drink from the Gray River." He explained.

I tossed him my canteen and he drained it.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drink it all." He admitted, looking embarrassed. Jon passed my canteen back to me. I didn't bother to mention that it would soon be full again. Explaining how I'd come by such a useful artifact would be even more awkward than discussing the origins of my horse.

"So what's the hurry?" I asked.

"I'm trying to get away from a woman." Jon admitted. He looked very nervous.

It was very difficult for me not to laugh at the way he peered over his shoulder, obviously expecting to see Vivian sneaking up on him. Still, I managed to mask my amusement by raising my eyebrow at him and giving him a perplexed look. "Why? I wondered.

"Orders." Jon informed me. "You wouldn't understand."

As Fate would have it, that was when a familiar chime caught my attention. The demon horse wouldn't leave the shadowland, but I dismounted and hopped across the creek to where Jon was standing with Ronin. My mailbox had appeared right next to him.

He stared at the little lacquer box floating in midair as if it were the single most disturbing thing he'd ever seen. Though I knew my mailbox _shouldn't _have appeared when I wasn't alone, I also knew that ignoring it would not make it go away and there was a good chance that I could explain away the whole business as clever thamaturgy. I took out two letters, one from Ayesha, and one marked with the ominous black seal of Oversight. I opened the Oversight letter first and scanned its contents.

As I'd anticipated, it told me almost nothing at all. My new instructions were to take Jon to Nexus and wait for someone called Tetsuo to make an appearance.

From The Golden Barque came news that I'd already heard whispers of. The trial of the century was about to take place in Yu Shan. Apparently, someone with a lot of clout had uncovered a huge Celestial smuggling ring. The fact that a number of powerful Gods and virtually the entire Division of Secrets were involved in sneaking contraband and trespassers through Calibration Gates did not surprise me. What did surprise me was that whoever had blown the whistle had the guts to Audit Nara-O, the God of Secrets himself.

I scribbled a quick reply to Ayesha, telling her truthfully that I had not the slightest idea what was going on and reminding her that I hadn't been home in several years. I also asked for what felt like the hundredth time if someone would _please _send me my own horse so that I could stop thieving my way across Creation. Though I couldn't deny that the demon horse had been useful, it was still undeniably creepy. I grimaced as it lunged and snagged a squirrel out of a nearby tree. With teeth like that thing had, I wasn't surprised to learn that it didn't eat grass.

After quickly gulping down its meal like a snake, the demon horse ambled a few paces away and promptly disappeared. All too glad to be rid of the thing, I folded up my reply to my Division head and sent my mailbox back to Yu Shan.

"What was that?" Jon wondered. He seemed more surprised by the disappearance of my mailbox than he had been by the disappearance of my horse.

I couldn't resist. "Orders." I echoed his earlier comment. "You wouldn't understand."

He smiled slightly. "You're a Sidereal, aren't you?"

"Damnit!" I grimaced as my Resplendent Destiny exploded.

"Hah!" Jon exclaimed. "I knew it! I have seen you before! You stole Ronin!"

"I stole him for _you_." I clarified. "You ought to be thanking me!"

Jon grinned very broadly.

"You're not even a little surprised?" I rolled my eyes. "Good grief, Fate's been getting sloppy."

Jon shrugged. "I don't think I can be surprised any more. I've had an eventful week."

That was an understatement if I'd ever heard one. "Me too." I nodded. "For what it's worth, you can call me Sam. And yes, I'm a Sidereal. I work for the Division of Journeys."

"Journeys, hunh?" That seemed to amuse him. "Right. Well, you obviously already know who I am. I suppose you're here to lead me back to that temple?"

"Not if you don't want to go." I replied.

He seemed surprised by my casual response and I gathered that Vivian had been arrogant, bossy, and not at all willing to compromise, as per usual. Also, her cultist friends had probably made quite an impression on the new Solar, listing off all of their absurd rules and regulations. It was no secret to me that the Sidereals who ran The Cult of the Illuminated did not retain most of their Solars for very long. Inevitably, every new Exalt they laid their hands on got suspicious and began asking the wrong kinds of questions. At some point, they were all either run out of the temple or "dealt with" in other ways.

"I don't know." Jon shrugged. "I don't have any water, I haven't eaten in days, I'm wounded..." He gestured to his bandages, which were covered in an awful lot of blood. "To be honest, I'm not sure how I'm still riding."

"Mm." I nodded. "I know that feeling. But it's still important that you choose the path you want to be on, Jon. If all you do with the power you've been given is exactly what people tell you to do with it, you're missing the point! You were Chosen for a reason. You're supposed to exercise your own judgment!"

"But I don't know what to do!" He protested. "I was just told to run!"

"Have you tried asking for directions?" I prompted.

"You're the first person I've seen in days." Jon admitted.

"So?" I gestured in the direction of the setting sun.

"You mean..." He stared at me incredulously and pointed at the sun himself.

I clapped twice for him, nice and slow. He looked embarrassed.

"How do I..." He began. Of course, I could tell what Jon wanted to ask. Raised in a Dragonblooded household, he'd probably never offered a prayer to any of the Gods apart from his family's patron Mela, the Immaculate Dragon of Air. And he wasn't just a Solar either. He was Zenith Caste. Whether he knew it or not, Jon had an actual, direct line of communication with the Unconquered Sun himself which was something not even the most powerful Gods in Yu Shan could lay claim to.

"Don't ask me." I informed him, waving my letter from Ayesha in his face. "I get my orders in the mail!"

Jon nodded. He took a deep breath and then bowed his head for a moment, closing his eyes. I couldn't hear what words he was mumbling but then like a jackknife, his head snapped up. His caste mark suddenly flared and his eyes became two pools of burning white light.

For a moment I could have sworn that I heard the entire Bureau of Destiny all gathered together in Fakheru's courtroom. The whispering was maddening. I actually felt as though I was physically standing next to Lytek as he watched Nara-O waft up to the stand to answer questions about his illicit dealings. Then Jon flipped right off his horse and landed flat on his back. I came crashing back into myself, feeling very nauseous. I stumbled a little but I didn't fall over.

With my hands in my pockets, I sauntered over in his direction and looked down at him. He looked like he'd been struck by lightning.

"Woo." I said.

Jon blinked several times and slowly sat up. He pressed his fingers to his temples with a grimace. "What happened?" He wondered uneasily.

"You don't know?" I prompted.

"I'm not sure." He replied.

"A friendly word of advice? Whatever you just did? Never do it again." I informed him.

"But I don't even know how it happened!" He protested. "Can't you tell me anything?"

"This is _way _above my pay grade." I shook my head. "Either you're experiencing genuine visions or you've been on the receiving end of some nasty Charms. In either case, you need to see an expert."

Jon frowned.

"Fortunately, it shouldn't take us more than a day or two to get to Nexus." I replied.

His eyes widened in disbelief. "But we were just in Lookshy! How is that even possible?"

"With Charms, all things are possible!" I informed him.

"All right." Jon paused. "So who are we going to see?"

"An expert." I replied.

"An expert in what?" Jon demanded.

"In _everything_." I smirked. "Don't worry, he'll like you. He might try to _kill _me, but he's got a soft spot for his fellow Solars."

"We're going to see the Ana... the _Solars_?" Jon quickly corrected himself. He laughed slightly. "So, what, we just walk right up to The Faeslayer?"

"Sure. You flash your target and we're good." I replied.

"_Target_?" Jon stared at me. His fingertips drifted in the direction of his forehead as he realized what I was talking about. "Are you crazy?" He demanded. The sun had gone down but the hills behind us were still stained with a ruddy orange glow.

"Nah, I'm the sane one! Of course, everybody that I know is completely nuts!" I teased, slapping him on the back. The sun had gone down but the hills behind us were still stained with a ruddy orange glow. In my mind's eye I could see Vivian scowling and clenching her fists as I snatched her prey away from her.

_Payback is a bitch_. I thought smugly to myself. Still, I tried not to let my head get too inflated. Though it seemed like I'd won the first round, orders from Oversight were never as simple or as straightforward as they seemed to be. Trouble would be waiting for us in Nexus if we even made it that far. I mentally filed the name "Tetsuo" away for safekeeping.

Why did it sound like one I'd heard before?


	10. Chapter 10 - Tetsuo

Tetsuo

In the days that followed, I learned nothing else useful about Anastacia, her plan, or the movements of The Mask. I didn't hear a word from Yu-Shan either, and apparently Burning Feather never learned that I'd signed her name to a piece of contraband celestial correspondence.

The Goddess of Intoxicants came to visit me after I spent the night with Anastacia, crowing over her success at "fixing the two of us up". I didn't think she deserved the credit she was taking, but I said nothing on the matter. I'd learned early on in my criminal career that bragging too much about a good thing almost always ensured that you would lose it. Sharing a bed with someone wasn't a sure way of making sure that they wouldn't betray you, and in some circumstances it could make that eventuality come sooner than expected. But I'd always had a weakness for a very specific kind of woman, and the fact that I still didn't even known Anastacia's real name made her even more irresistible to me.

As my week in Nexus drew to a close, I managed to do a little work of my own and closed a deal with Pagwa that would help me if things went south in Sijan, but I was beginning to feel somewhat more confident about Anastacia's intentions. I searched her entire mansion, coerced her skittish servant, inquired around town and even sought the opinions of several local Gods. Not one of them knew more about her than I did myself.

Anastacia had arranged private transportation for the two of us to Sijan, a pair of guards and a carriage driver. They were all Southerners and kept mostly to themselves as they'd been paid well to do, which left us with no company except for each other. Not that I minded being alone with Anastacia. When we weren't trading inspirational quotes or prying at one another's secrets, we'd found a _very_ satisfying way to spend all of our free time.

The trip was uneventful, except for one night when our caravan guards killed a mountain lion. We arrived in Sijan on a particularly dreary morning and took up residence in the massive tomb-like manor that was "the Commissa family's ancestral home". Of course, knowing that there was no _real_ Commissa family, I couldn't help but wonder who the spiderweb-encrusted old house actually belonged to. Publicly, we were Antonio and Maria Rossi, an outrageously wealthy young couple come to look at some properties that we were interested in purchasing. Privately, Anastacia had given up the ruse that she was a wealthy heiress who had a father who lay "on his deathbed" and embraced the fact that we were a pair con-artists about to take on the City God of Sijan. To that end, I would need to utilize a good number of my own secrets.

I knew Ereshkigal better than I wanted to admit. Though lots of old and powerful Gods are pretentious, Ereshkigal was an institution in city full of morticians and mausoleums. He looked like a dessicated corpse when he wasn't feigning the blush of life himself and he seemed to revel in the fact that so many of the citizens of Sijan were constantly looking for new ways to commemorate him eternally. The God had a significant entourage of the dead. He seemed to favor silent ghosts and partially revived corpses who were better bodyguards than conversationalists. When we took our first little tour around Sijan, I was not surprised at all to discover that yet another "lasting" monument to meglomaniacal Ereshkigal had been constructed on the site of my former home.

If any of the God's lackeys recognized me, Anastacia and I would be in serious trouble. To buy us some time, I cut my hair, shaved, and upgraded my usual wardrobe. Whenever I wasn't posing as "Master Rossi", I'd decided to keep playing the astrologer character I'd created in Nexus. I still wasn't entirely sure what Anastacia wanted from Ereshkigal, but I was beginning to suspect that whatever the God was embroiled in had something to do with the movements of The Mask. I observed the constellation every night and made a record of the positions of the stars. Anastacia watched my new hobby with amusement. She would sit on the edge of the fountain in the overgrown rose garden that surrounded our residence with her arms crossed and a very smug expression on her face. Of course, if I demanded to know what she was thinking, she'd only flit away with a mischievous smile, giving me no answers at all.

After we had been in Sijan about four days and looked at three different properties together to establish our ruse, Anastacia decided that it was time for us to get working on our real plans. I'd just started sipping my morning coffee when she dropped a bomb on me that I hadn't expected.

"I need you to get me in to see Ereshkigal. Tonight." She announced.

"I thought we were trying to avoid him." I reminded her. "You _can _investigate someone without paying them a personal visit!"

"Not quickly enough." She shook her head. "Things are moving faster than I anticipated. We can't wait any longer."

"Patience is a virtue." I replied.

"That sounds absurd coming from you, Dorabo." She wrinkled her nose at me.

"Listen, Ereshkigal can and will kill us if he has cause to. He's a powerful God and he has a very bad temper." I explained. "Under the circumstances, we ought to stay away from him. I know a little Thamaturgy. Let's interrogate one of his ghouls."

Anastacia heaved a heavy, disappointed sigh.

"You don't like my plan?" I observed. "You know, I might be able to come up with something better if you would tell me what we're actually trying to accomplish here." I reminded her

"I can't tell you. Knowing what's going on in advance will only put you in more danger." She retorted.

I crossed my arms and gave her a look. "I am still perfectly willing to quit this job!" I reminded her.

Anastacia rolled her eyes. "Oh, all right! Damn you, Dorabo! You can't make this easy for me, can you?" She took a deep breath. "Have you ever heard of something called The Heaven-Sent Sword?"

I smiled slightly. "And what does this have to do with Ereshkigal?" I pressed.

"He's been buying up shards of the sword." She explained. "He's already spent an outrageous amount of money and given away several undisclosed favors. The sword may be legendary, but no artifact can possibly be worth what he's put on the table so far. He knows something about the sword. Something no one else knows."

"A secret." I observed.

Anastacia nodded.

I didn't respond immediately, though I disliked how the line between my own problems and Anastacia's seemed to be blurring.

"Well, you already know my position." I paused. "And I'm beginning to think that certain parties in Yu Shan are very worried about the Audit taking place right now, not because they think they'll be implicated in the smuggling, but because something else might come to light."

"You've been watching the stars." Anastacia nodded. "And I've heard you say it... _the Mask has moved_."

"I've been breaking the laws of Heaven and Creation for my whole life." I explained. "And nothing I have _ever _done has been powerful enough to move the stars. We've got to tread carefully here. Whatever we're in the middle of involves some of the most powerful Gods in Yu Shan. It might even catch the attention of the Incarnae themselves."

"I understand that." Anastacia bit her lip. "But we can't waste time either. Other parties are already moving on this, and some of them may have more information than we do already. The less we know, the more of a disadvantage we have."

"I still have some contacts here in Sijan." I admitted. "I could arrange a visit with Ereshkigal, but his calendar is always fairly busy. It could take weeks. Maybe you could make a petition at one of his temples?" I suggested.

Anastacia shot me a black look. "I'm _not _praying to that arrogant lout!" She informed me.

"I suppose there is one other way." I paused. "Although I don't like it."

"Oh?" Anastacia grinned.

"_I_ could make a petition at one of his temples." I replied. "He'll show up _immediately_, I'll guarantee it. But then we'll have to figure out how to get away from him before he kills us both."

"I think I can handle that." Anastacia smirked.

"Oh?" I pressed.

"If I _explain _my plan, it won't work." She replied. "You're going to have to trust me?

"Trust you?" I rolled my eyes. "I don't even know your real name! And you expect me to just put my head out where Ereshkigal can chop it off?" I put my hands on my hips.

Anastacia sighed. "Fair enough. Let's make a deal then. If you trust me this one time, I'll tell you anything." She waited for my response.

"Anything?" I echoed, suspecting that she would start backpedaling.

"I worry about you, Dorabo." Anastacia admitted. "Not all secrets are fun. And once you know the truth, you can't just forget it if you don't like it."

"You don't think I know that?" I sighed. "The thing about the truth, Anastacia... is that it is what it is, regardless of whether you know it or not. So would you rather be oblivious or forewarned?"

"They say ignorance is bliss." She replied sweetly.

"Only for the ignorant." I replied, kissing her. "For people like us, it's torture."

I drank most of a bottle of wine as Anastacia composed a few letters and sent them out. I didn't know who she was writing to and didn't ask. Very near sundown, we closed up our residence and began waltzing down the street to Sijan's largest temple, trying our damndest to look like a happy young couple enjoying the beautiful evening.

I felt sick to my stomach, and not from the wine. Even if I trusted Anastacia's plan, there was a chance she'd miscalculated. It was very possible that Ereshkigal would kill me anyway. Worse still, he might kill her.

That didn't sit well with me at all. I'd never much cared what happened to any of my accomplices before, but I was so used to working with Gods who could simply discorporate or with Brock who'd been dead for more than thirty years. I touched the whistle he'd given me to summon his Al-Khayl. If all else failed, I _could _call the demon horse... but I really didn't want to get Brock in trouble with Lord Khaaj.

After deliberating over where to call Ereshkigal, Anastacia had decided that our best bet was to get his attention in the massive mausoleum which loomed over the market square. That way, if we could make it to the front doors of his temple, we could use the crowds of thieves and drunks that filled the streets after dark to make our escape. Of course, I reminded her that the last time I'd crossed paths with the city God, he'd literally upended several buildings trying to crush me. If he was angry enough, Ereshkigal would kill his own people without hesitation. It was one thing to knock over a vendor's stall to make an escape. A little bruised produce and some lost profits wouldn't weigh heavily on my conscience. But if I taunted the God into coming after me and he happened to run right through an orphanage or something, I wasn't sure I could forgive myself. I'd have to settle things as quickly as possible, using the nastiest secrets in my arsenal.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure that Ereshkigal would let me talk long enough to blackmail him again.

We approached the altar in Ereshkigal's temple. Anastacia gave a low whistle as she gazed up at the monstrosities which lined the long corridor. There were skeletons cast in bronze standing on granite pedestals and massive marble statues of men in antiquated funerary robes. The air was thick with incense and four braziers full of fire illuminated the huge room. Immediately, I sensed that we were being watched.

"Ereshkigal, God of Sijan!" I shouted. "You've got visitors!" I didn't even have to spend any Essence to get his attention. The God appeared swathed in black robes that moved like the waves of the ocean. He stood twelve feet tall and when he lowered his hood, his face looked like that of a man who'd died out in some desert and had all of the moisture sucked out of his body along with his life. Hordes of ghosts and ghouls melted out of the shadows to attend to their master. Anastacia took a nervous step back, but when I glanced over my shoulder to see if she was thinking about running, she stepped forward and took my hand.

"Tetsuo!" The God sneered. "I warned you never to set foot in this city again!"

"Tetsuo?" Anastacia wondered.

"That's my real name." I told her. "What's yours?"

She gave me a condescending look but didn't answer my question.

"Believe me, I had no interest in coming back." I turned to Ereshkigal. "But then I heard you were in the market for shards of a certain sword."

"And we so happen to have one." Anastacia added. I blinked in surprise and stared at her. With the way Ereshkigal also watched her, she evidentially realized that she'd have to show some proof of her bold claim. She reached into the lacing of her corset and produced a tiny sliver of silvery metal about two inches long. In the firelight it looked like a living thing, all kinds of colors dancing inside of it.

Ereshkigal scowled. "I know your tricks, scoundrel. Even if that is a shard of the Heaven Sent Sword, why should I pay you for it? Why shouldn't I just kill you where you stand and take it?"

"Oh, come now!" I rolled my eyes. "You bought other shards of this sword for quintessence. A pardon is cheap in comparison!"

"You _would_ think that!" The God snorted. "But I cannot forgive your treason! If I let such serious crimes go unpunished, all of my people will believe that they can do whatever they like and then barter for forgiveness! Your companion may leave Sijan, Tetsuo. The shard will buy her life, and I will forgive her for associating with you. But _you _will not escape my vengeance a second time!"

Anastacia searched the room for an opening. I couldn't guess what thoughts were whirling through her head, but whatever plan she'd concocted seemed to have failed already. With a defeated sigh, she held out the shard of the sword. Ereshkigal drifted down the stairs. He loomed over her and reached to take the piece out of the palm of her outstretched hand. He examined it for a moment and then crushed it between two of his fingers.

"A forgery? How dare you? Do you think I am a fool?" Ereshkigal snarled. I turned to Anastacia who only shrugged, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Well, that went well." I observed.

"Chain them both up." The God ordered his ghouls. They surrounded us on all sides, and we put up our hands in a gesture of surrender.

They chained our hands in front of us and we were drug to the inner sanctuary of the God's temple. In Ereshkigal's typical pompous fashion, he'd had all the walls draped in blood red velvet and the hordes of ghosts and undead who served as his underlings were gathered together to watch their master's "ultimate triumph".

Not that it was much of an accomplishment for a City God as powerful as Ereshkigal to kill two mere mortals... but he really had no sense of scale. From Ereshkigal's perspective, any slight against him was an executable offense, and anyone who dared to offend him deserved to die a suitably dramatic traitor's death. Of course, if the offender happened to be born of an old Sijanese family and raised in his city... that insult was even more insufferable.

The ghouls forced the two of us to our knees and Ereshkigal retrieved his scythe, an intimidating weapon. He examined its edge with a satisfied smile and slowly approached me.

"You think you're so clever!" He hissed. "But you are a fool, Tetsuo! You have never respected your betters, and now you will face the consequences of your actions!" He raised his scythe over my head. "Any last words, Secret Thief?"

Anastacia squeezed my hand.

"May I... say goodbye?" I asked, gesturing to Anastacia.

"You may." The God replied gruffly. "But make it quick!"

I snapped the string on Brock's whistle and pressed it into Anastacia's hand. "I can get out of these cuffs." I whispered, wriggling my left wrist a little. "As soon as Ereshkigal tries to cut my head off, I'm going to go for his knees. Blow this whistle and get out of here. Even if he kills me, don't hesitate. Tell Brock what's going on with this Heaven-Sent Sword and the Mask. Help my father if you can. Please."

If I knew Anastacia at all, I knew she would figure the rest out.

"_Trust me_." She passed the whistle back to me. "This isn't over yet."

I didn't say anything in response. I was very nearly free of my chains, but for some reason I couldn't manage to dislocate my right thumb. It was annoying because I'd never had so much trouble getting out of manacles before. I wondered if I'd accidentally upset the God of Locks recently and tried not to look too anxious. That was fairly difficult with Ereshkigal's scythe so close to my neck.

"Are you finished?" Ereshkigal demanded.

"A moment, please!" Anastacia snapped. The God looked slightly nervous as she glared at him, not that I was surprised. In addition to being very clever and very beautiful, Anastacia could be powerfully intimidating when she chose to be.

"I need you to swear to me, Tetsuo. I need you to be mine, and _only _mine. Can you do that?"

That was no small thing she was asking. A month ago, I would have said that what Anastacia wanted me to do was _impossible_. Throwing my own life into the hands of someone I still barely knew who had even more secrets than I did seemed like insanity. And maybe it would have been, if that person had been anyone other than Anastacia.

We both stared up at Ereshkigal. He tested the distance with his scythe, the steel barely grazing the side of my neck as he made his first pass and then stopped. Obviously, his intention was to force a bawling, blubbering apology out of me before he cut off my head, but I wasn't going to give him one. I wasn't so emotionally attached to my own life that I couldn't face death with some dignity. The only thing that really tore at my heartstrings was that I still didn't know how Anastacia planned to get away.

"Anastacia, I love you!" I blurted out.

The God stared at me in disbelief. "Are you serious?" He demanded, not at all pleased that he was no longer the center of attention. Even his hordes of the dead seemed more interested in what Anastacia would say next than their master's long-anticipated revenge.

"Say it then! Mean it! Say you'll be mine!" She ordered.

I hesitated. I was acutely aware of Ereshkigal's eyes on me. Knowing what I did about life after death, I almost said _no_. Maybe, like Brock, I could hold onto my identity strongly enough to become a ghost. It wouldn't be anything compared to real life, and it would mean that I could never return to Yu Shan, but I'd remain my own master. Or I could do what Anastacia was asking of me... and belong to _her_.

"I'm yours." I decided. "Just tell me what to do."

Ignoring Ereshkigal completely, she turned and kissed me. Of course, she'd kissed me before and we'd had other sorts of fun as well, but no kiss from her had ever been _that _kiss. It was the single most earth-shattering, monumental kiss ever experienced in the history of the world and I knew with the utmost certainty that I hadn't made a mistake. And as she drew away from me, Anastacia whispered a _secret_ in my ear.

I suddenly remembered things that I'd never known and understood inherently how so many pieces of so many different puzzles simply fell into place. All of the business with my _Celo Viatori_, the Mask, and the Heaven-Sent Sword, I understood how it was all connected and what had to be done.

I stood up and broke free of my chains. I instinctively knew where Ereshkigal would strike first, and so I decided not to be standing there when his scythe shattered the stone. His lackeys began to panic and most of them fled. I easily slipped into cat stance and threw the few who valiantly tried to tackle me. The martial arts that I hadn't seriously practiced in years was suddenly as fresh in my mind as if my sifu was standing right over me, ordering me to do my forms _again_.

"Damn you meddling Sidereals!" Ereshkigal cursed.

I glanced around, wondering if real trouble had arrived... and very slowly came to realize that Ereshkigal was talking about me.

Of course, I'd always had Essence of my own, but at that moment I was _much _more powerful than I'd ever been before. My lips still burned from Anastacia's kiss and I knew without a doubt where my sudden strength had come from.

Then, as the heady rush began to dissipate and I fell back into myself, I realized that Anastacia was gone.

I brushed my hair out of my face and took a deep breath, almost jumping out of my skin as my fingertips touched a spot on my brow that tingled with Essence. I didn't have to guess what it was.

A Caste Mark.

"You _bitch_!" I cursed, though it did seem awfully bold to say something like that to one of the Incarnae. The question of who was being played had been settled in a disturbingly final manner. There was no use denying it... I was now beholden to work for Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets herself. And with power came responsibility, which meant that I'd actually have to start paying the price for any Celestial crimes I committed.

Of course, I still had a God trying to kill me, and if I didn't get away from Ereshkigal I wouldn't have time to mull over what had happened to me and decide if it was a blessing or a curse.

And so I did the only thing I could do.

I seized the whistle Brock had left me to call his demon horse and blew it as hard as I could.

Since a good portion of Sijan _is _a shadowland, I didn't have to run far before the demon horse found me. But it wasn't Maat who came to my summons. The horse was bigger, and more red-colored than black. He gave me a wild-eyed look and wouldn't let me get anywhere near him. I realized that it was the Essence flaring around me that he didn't like. Having so much power that it literally _bled _off of me was something I wasn't used to myself. I tool hold of his reins.

"Now listen, Demon Horse! Just get me out of this city and then you can dump me wherever you want!" I managed to get one foot into a stirrup before Ereshkigal exploded out of his manse. Demon Horse apparently decided that the angry God of Sijan was a lot scarier than the green glowing man who wanted to ride him, and so he relented and let me swing up into his saddle.

Then he took off like a bolt of lightning.

Of course, I'd ridden Maat before with Brock and so I understood somewhat how the Al-Khayl could move. But nothing could have prepared me for a full gallop. Shadowlands flowed into bordermarches and the world around me spun faster than my stomach could tolerate. I felt for a moment as if I could actually see the places where Creation unraveled and began to realize that the sharp steel hooves of the Al-Khayl were cutting into the fabric of the world where it was already weak and making it progressively more unstable. It was _wrong_!_ It had to be stopped!_

A word occurred to me. It was something I'd heard Sidereals whispering about in the past, but I'd never really understood what it was.

_ Paradox._

There was an inherent_ structure_ in Creation that had to be maintained. While I wasn't too fond of rules myself, there was a marked difference between convincing a corrupt bureaucrat to empty his pockets and _willfully defying _the order of Heaven. And what the Heaven Sent Sword represented, if my sudden influx of memories could be believed... was the very will of Heaven itself made into a blade. If a blade such as that were to fall into the wrong hands, nothing could possibly stand against it. The fabric of reality itself would begin to unravel in key places, allowing ancient fiends and creatures of the Wyld to invade Creation.

Whatever the Al-Khayl was doing as it ran as fast as it could... it was _not_ something I could tolerate for very long.

I literally had no idea where I was when the Demon Horse unceremoniously dumped me over a fence. Blackness washed over me. I saw the familiar faces of my father and my childhood sifu, both looking down on me. With them was Anastacia... _Jupiter_, dressed as I remembered her from the first day we'd spent together. All three of them were watching me from a place I didn't recognize, an immense black cavern filled with intricate spiderwebs.

"Is he going to make it?" My sifu asked.

Jupiter didn't respond. She only put her hand out as if she would lift me up. I wanted to take her hand, but somehow I didn't have the strength to reach for it. I fell away from her and into the dark.

Then I heard a very familiar sound, a bright little chime like something from a dream. I jumped with a start as I realized that it was already morning and that an ornate lacquered box had just appeared in midair, hovering only a few inches away from my head. It looked like a very small shrine and its tiny green doors were marked with the seal of The Division of Secrets.

A celestial mailbox!

Then I actually looked around like an idiot, wondering who it was for.

I'd very nearly forgot the predicament that I was in, at least until I caught sight of the Al-Khayl standing on the very edge of the shadowland I'd stumbled out of. The Demon Horse stared at me like I was some kind of lunatic, laying out there in a patch of fresh green grass that any normal animal would have been eager to graze on.

He looked innocent enough when he wasn't angry and spewing sulfur, but I wouldn't soon forget that experience I'd just been through. Though I was certain that he already had some suitably grandiose Malfean title, I decided that I was going to give him the nastiest nickname that I could think of.

_ Paradox _made a little whuffling sound and eyed the celestial mailbox warily. And as the business of the previous night came flooding back to me, I did the same.

As I had feared, my own name was inscribed on it in beautiful Old Realm characters.

When I was young, the appearance of my sifu's mailbox had always meant a letter from my father, and I had been hoping for a response to the letter I'd sent him via that Chosen of Serenity's mailbox back in Nexus.

But actually _opening_ the box in front of me was another matter. It was like admitting that I was _okay _with being hoodwinked into working for Heaven, which I still wasn't. I had always defined myself by the work I did, and if I could no longer be Dorobo "The Secret Thief" I didn't know what that left me. I couldn't comprehend what it would be like to work within a bureaucracy in any sort of honest capacity, and I knew better to think that all of the Gods and Sidereals that I'd blackmailed or manipulated over the years would welcome me into their fold with open arms.

Wondering over Jupiter's reasons for choosing me wasn't going to change the fact that I'd told her _yes_. True, I hadn't known who she was... but she'd asked me to swear my undying loyalty to her and I'd done it. I'd done it, and I'd meant it too.

I smiled slightly as it occurred to me that I had _another _new secret, one that no one would ever believe. From the way all of Yu-Shan spoke in whispers about the complex plans of the Incarnae, I suspected that not even the oldest and most powerful Siderealsactually _saw_ the Maidens very often. And I'd actually taken Jupiter to bed!

Regardless of how I felt about being Chosen myself, I knew better than to try to avoid a celestial summons. I couldn't ignore the mailbox or leave it behind. No matter where I went, it would keep appearing beside me until I opened it, and the longer I waited, the more attention my reticence would surely draw.

I sighed and opened the box. Inside was a single piece of cream colored paper, stamped with the seal of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy... and a length of antique shroud cloth. It was just about long enough that I could wear it as belt... though I seemed to remember that one of the Nexus Solars had been wearing a similar shroud cloth _tied around her head_. There was a reason for that, I decided. I tied the cloth around my head and opened the letter I'd received. As I'd hoped, it was from my father.

_ My Dear Tetsuo,  
_

_ I will not waste my ink explaining why it is that you have received this letter in a box from the Forbidding Manse of Ivy. I hope that you now understand why it was necessary for me to hide you from the eyes of Heaven for so many years. You see, it is the habit of the elder members of the Bureau of Destiny to take children from their parents at a very young age. They would have tried to mold you into the kind of man that they could control, not the kind of man that you needed to become. _

_ You may not like to hear this, Tetsuo, but your whole childhood was an experiment to bring back a better kind of Chosen. Forgive me for never telling you, but The Incarnae themselves demanded my silence. You must understand, it has been a very long time since there were Sidereals who possessed enough power, independence, and force of character to share the world with Solar Exalts. Having secretly met with some of the returning Solars, I devised that the secret to their success was their freedom, a gift which I wished to give you. I could not be more proud, my son. Of all the Maidens, Jupiter is perhaps the most difficult to impress._

_ At present, it is essential that you stay out of sight. Hide in Shadowlands or Bordermarshes, anywhere outside of Fate where you can keep your head down and prevent our enemies from dragging you back to Yu Shan in a manner which will look disgraceful. Your friend Brock can lead you to The Riders Al-Khayl. Their leader is a yozi called Khaaj and he is up to no good. I say this with confidence because as you well know, my chief preserve is secrets which are known to only one person._

_ Khaaj is currently looking for something rare and very valuable, "The Heaven-Sent Sword" which spells certain death for any god or demon. If you can use your skills to make sure that he never finds it, or relieve him of it as soon as he does... it may be possible for you to learn who is causing The Mask to move and uncover a treasonous plot which makes all of the doings of the Celo Viatori seem inconsequential by comparison._

_ I am sure you are very worried about this impending Audit and what it could mean for me. You must not let sentiment cloud your thinking. Even if I should fall, no Exalt can be prosecuted in a Celestial Court for crimes which he committed before he was Chosen. The Maidens do not make mistakes and you may not be punished for any of "Dorobo The Secret Thief's" indiscretions. But from now on, you must strive to be only Tetsuo, Chosen of Secrets... and discover for yourself what that means._

_ The cloth that I have sent with this letter was cut from my own veils and it has a particular power that I am sure you will find useful. Gods and other beings who are able to perceive Essence as it naturally flows will be able to identify you as an Exalt. Should you wish to continue masquerading as a mere mortal, this shroud will enable you to do exactly that. _

_ You will need many more lessons in Astrology in order to learn how to craft for yourself the many shifting faces called Resplendent Destinies. I do not doubt that you will excel in such studies as you always have, and I will make every effort to secure for you a good tutor._

_ Tetsuo, I dearly wish that I could come to meet you at the nearest Calibration Gate and walk with you to the home I have secured for you here in Yu Shan. It is right across the road from my manse, the very same old manor that you asked me about when the Celo Viatori first brought you to meet me. With as long as it has been empty, I think we will need to hire some spiders to help us clean it out. Your office is in a terrible state too, I'm afraid. It belonged to the God of Packrats for more than a century and he never threw anything away. It will probably take days to find your desk, but I am sure that it is still in there somewhere. _

_ Despite the Audit still looming over us, there is great excitement here in Yu Shan. I have run the Division of Secrets for a very long time as an enigmatic shadow of a being who speaks only in whispers and never shows his face. But I have learned that some secrets are fundamentally unsatisfying to keep. I may diminish my own power, but I will not destroy myself if I admit that I have the capacity to love. Suffice to say, everyone is already quite eager to met you, my son._

_ All my love,_

_ Father_

_ From the office of Nara-O of The Hundred Veils, Keeper of Secrets_

_ Division of Secrets, The Forbidding Manse of Ivy_

_ The Most Excellent Designers of Destiny and Sidereal Conjunctions, Yu-Shan_

The words on the paper remained even as I finished reading them. And so I read them again. After I'd gone over my father's letter four times, I folded it up very small and tucked it into my boot. The clothes I was wearing were in a sorry state. I didn't have any money to my name and I only had one of my cufflinks. I wondered momentarily if Jupiter had taken the other.

Paradox snorted and pawed impatiently as I climbed onto his back. I didn't doubt that he could understand me, and so I gave him the only direction that made sense. "Find Brock."


	11. Chapter 11 - Estelle

Estelle

Traveling with Munno and Genji, the distance from Great Forks to Nexus seemed remarkably short. As we rode closer to the magnificent city, I could see Genji becoming progressively more nervous.

"Munno and I can go on without you." I informed him as the huge gates came within sight. It was no secret to anyone that the Solars who ruled Nexus were not particularly fond of most Dragonblooded. They were allowed to enter the city as everyone was, but they were treated with suspicion. Any one of them could potentially be a spy or an assassin.

"I'm not afraid of Anathema." Genji retorted. There was something in his tone that told me he was lying, or at least avoiding the truth. I still couldn't shake how he'd been so remarkably accepting of Masamune and Murasame. Maybe solving the mystery of his mother was more important to him than his divinely mandated duty to purge the world of Anathema. Or maybe Genji knew more than he was telling? I had to imagine that it would be awfully difficult for a young Dynast to come to grips with the truth, that Solars were Exalts and not demons. Though it was true that some Solars had been decadent and cruel towards the end of the First Age, the same could be said of many Dragonbloods. My thoughts drifted to an old proverb about power that my sifu had so often repeated.

_"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."_

Maybe that _was _the crux of it all.

The gates of Nexus were guarded by four beastmen dressed in white tabards marked with the radiant sun heraldry of The Faeslayer. They issued a set of papers to each person who passed into the city along with a little pamphlet that explained the new laws of Nexus and how some of the technology in the city worked. Munno stared up at the lightning rail in disbelief as the train whizzed underneath the aqueducts and into the station at the top of White Gold Tower. The High First Age architecture was remarkable by any standards. Though he didn't say anything at all, Genji marveled at it as well.

I flipped through my little pamphlet and stopped on a page entitled "Money". I smiled at picture of a woman putting her hand on an Essence terminal. Nexus was becoming a little version of Yu Shan!

"Let's get something to eat!" I suggested.

"I don't have very much money left." Genji admitted.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of our bill." I volunteered.

Genji didn't ask me how, but I set him and Munno up at a little restaurant called "The Divine Peach" and went to find an Essence terminal. I withdrew eight hard motes before I got the distinct feeling that I was being watched. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I noticed a tiny mechanical spider scurrying into a crack in a nearby wall. For being benevolent rulers, Nexus's Solars were certainly paranoid. Just how much surveillance had they set up all over their city? I was certain that I didn't want to know.

When I made it back to the restaurant, the waiter had just arrived with three bowls of rice. He set one in front of each of us and then returned with a pitcher of crystal clear water.

"What's this?" I wondered, poking at the bowl set in front of me. What it looked like was peasant's food, some white rice with a fried egg resting on top.

"The restaurant's specialty." Genji replied. He looked slightly put off. "I suppose this city isn't as prosperous as it looks."

Munno had no complaints. He was already digging into his meal. "Eat!" He grunted, poking at Genji with his chopsticks. "It's _very_ good!"

I decided to give it a try myself and found that I couldn't argue with him. Clearly, _The Divine Peach _put something in their simple meal that made it extremely satisfying and delicious. The water was the best I'd ever tasted outside of Yu Shan, and I suspected that it was heavily purified through Solar blessings and Celestial sorcery. Of course, I wasn't about to tell Genji that.

After we'd finished our meal we decided to find a place to spend the night. Since Munno wasn't sure which temple Masamune and Murasame wanted him to take the sword to, we expected to be in the city several days. I hoped Fate would throw us a bone sooner, but I wasn't going to say anything to Munno. He was obviously more nervous than Genji was, still carrying the Heaven-Sent Sword strapped to his back. In the weeks we'd traveled together, he'd been training with it every morning, but the blade was extremely heavy and he still couldn't wield it effectively. Munno was a strong man and skilled with a sword, but the quantity of magical metals that had gone into making the new Heaven-Sent Sword would have made it difficult for an Exalt to fight with, even after attuning it.

The three of us headed down to Harlotry. Though I wasn't sure how Munno or Genji would feel about all of the brothels, some of the least expensive boarding houses in the city were in the same neighborhood and I didn't want to reveal how "wealthy" I suddenly was. I hadn't seen Genji read his pamphlet and wasn't sure that he knew Essence was money. He still didn't know that I was an Exalt and that was for the best. Though he'd been a good traveling companion so far, most people in Creation didn't know that Sidereals existed and I intended to keep everyone I dealt with in the dark until Oversight told me otherwise.

We booked two rooms at a little place called _The Wild Rover_. It had a nice view overlooking a canal and a little patio out back that was absolutely infested with morning glories and climbing roses. We watched the sun go down and sipped some nice local wine.

"I don't normally like cities." Munno admitted. "But this place is very beautiful."

"It's too nice, don't you think?" Genji pressed. "It seems suspicious to me. I feel like we're being watched."

"You're paranoid." I told him, thinking about the little spider I'd seen earlier. "There are plenty of people in this city who are far more interesting than the three of us."

That was when I noticed a familiar figure coming through the front door of the inn. I nudged Munno's foot without taking my eyes off the canal and he glanced over his shoulder. He reacted badly when he saw Windswept Rhapsody sauntering up to the bar with her instrument slung over her shoulder and Genji immediately realized that there was something going on.

"Who is that woman?" He demanded.

"Someone I know." Munno admitted.

"If it's all the same, I'd prefer we avoid her." I added.

"That sounds ominous." Genji observed. He didn't give Rhapsody a second glance and I was prepared to ignore her presence myself.

Obviously not caring what sort of reception she was liable to receive, the bard skipped over to our table anyway and planted herself in the empty chair directly across from Munno. She was dressed differently than she had been when our paths had last crossed. Although her clothes were still very colorful, she looked more like a high-priced whore than a wandering bard. Her usual braids were brushed out and she was dressed in a sky blue kimono with gold and white trim. She wore a pendant made in the shape of a radiant sun around her neck and with her robe almost falling off her shoulders, it was impossible to ignore. Obviously, she was dressing up for someone. I wondered if it was a man she already had or one she was trying to get.

"Why, Heaven-Sent Munno!" She exclaimed. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"Hello, Rhapsody." I replied with a slight smile, butting between Munno and the bard. "You're not going to get us arrested again, are you?"

"I'm very sorry about the last time." She sighed heavily. "I hope you can forgive me." She put her elbows on the table and folded her hands under her chin, giving Genji a wicked look. "And who's this?" She asked with a wicked smirk. I wasn't sure if she was flirting with him or teasing him.

"Tepet Genji." He introduced himself, not seeming impressed by her curves or her stunning smile. Rhapsody's eyes said everything she didn't. She obviously loathed dealing with men who didn't find her attractive.

"Are you going to play here tonight?" Munno asked. "Rhapsody is a bard." He informed Genji. "She's very talented."

"I appreciate the complement." Rhapsody smirked. "But actually, I have other plans. I just stopped in to say hello to an old friend before heading over to Anathema's."

"_Anathema's_?" Genji echoed incredulously.

"Have you never been? It's _fabulous_! The best bar in Creation!" Rhapsody laughed. "I'll save you a table!" She volunteered with a wink. Without another word, she danced off.

"We're not going." I decided.

"Of course we're going!" Munno corrected me.

Genji rolled his eyes. "What is this _Anathema's_ place anyway?"

"It's a whorehouse." I replied.

"So? If Rhapsody is playing there, it will be fun!" Munno argued. "And if we may die tomorrow, that's all the more reason to dance tonight!"

I sighed in defeat. As usual, Munno was right. "All right, we'll go! Are you coming?" I asked Genji.

"If the two of you are going, I'm certainly not letting you leave me here!" He replied.

It wasn't difficult to find Anathema's. One of the most notorious brothels in Harlotry, it occupied most of the left side of the street opposite of The An Tang Princess and The Golden Doubloon. Red and green woodwork, brass railings and leaded glass windows made the place look like a poor man's vision of a Dynast's palace. Even so early in the evening, Anathema's was a hive of activity. The sound of _The Goblin's Ball_ wafting out onto the street told me that Rhapsody had already begun performing. There were two whores standing in the doorway with paintbrushes in their hands.

"Welcome to Anathema's!" The first chirped. "Want to get painted?"

"Will it come off?" Munno wondered.

"Yes, when you wash." The second whore nodded. She had false cat ears fixed to her head and a fluffy tail pinned to the silk sash of her rose-colored kimono. When I saw her face, I realized that the mark of silver paint just above her nose was supposed to be a Changing Moon Caste Mark.

Apparently, the whores were _painting_ the brothel's patrons to look like Solars and Lunars.

"Don't you _dare!_" Genji scowled, brushing away the whore who approached him.

"Leave him be." Munno sighed. The whore with the cat ears had put a gold dollop of pain on his head and I couldn't shake the fact that it looked an awful lot like a target. I didn't doubt it would also attract Rhapsody's attention, but I said nothing. If Munno still wanted to take his chances with her despite what she'd already done to us, that was his decision. His wife had been dead for years. Maybe it would be good for him to have a little fling. So why did Rhapsody irritate me so much?

I knew the reason for that, though I didn't want to admit it. Since Munno knew that Heaven had sent me to help him, we weren't exactly close. Still, before Genji had joined up with us, we'd started to become friends. Unfortunately, because Munno knew that I was a Sidereal and Genji did not, he seemed to feel compelled to give me a lot of space when the Dragonblood was around. I missed the two of us looking up at the stars and enjoying a simple cup of tea, but until Fate revealed why Genji was following us, I wasn't about to let him out of my sight.

As Rhapsody launched into a brilliant rendition of _Rufty Tufty_, Munno offered me his arm for a dance. I glanced at Genji who'd found himself a seat in the far back of the bar. Two whores seemed to be stalking him, and one of them was a veryimpressive woman. She was a Westerner with skin the color of dark chocolate and striking emerald green eyes. The orange silk she wore clung to her body like a second skin and she moved like a cat stalking its prey. For a moment I thought I saw the distinctive glimmer of real moonsilver around her neck. Even if Nexus hadn't been an Anathema-friendly city, a whorehouse like the one we were in would have been the ideal hiding place for an authentic Lunar, and I was willing to bet that she was one.

Rhapsody began playing another song I didn't know the name of and most of Anathema's patrons jumped up out of their seats. When Genji shoved the real Lunar away from him, she seized the girl with the cat ears for a dance. A few other musicians from the street wandered in and picked up the tune. No one seemed to notice when Rhapsody stopped playing herself.

A man had just walked into the bar. He was tall and blond, maybe thirty years old and dressed in the simple, serviceable clothes. I could have mistaken him for a common soldier but his intensely blue eyes and the way that he carried himself made him very difficult to ignore. His one bit of vanity was a beautifully crafted pendant set with a single blood red stone.

"Loren!" The woman in orange wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the nose. "Where's my Mira?" She demanded. "It's my birthday, damnit! She should be here!"

"My wife is currently throwing out everything in her closet." The man replied. "She can't decide what to wear."

"Bleh, she's so ridiculous about clothes! I don't care _what_ she wears!" The Lunar snorted. "It all looks the same on the floor!" She smirked mischievously, twirling herself in a circle around him.

"I told her you would say that." He sighed heavily. "So where's Rhapsody? I thought I heard her playing, but she seems to have disappeared."

"Hunh. She must be getting a drink." The Lunar observed. "Is Veritas flying in?"

"He should be here any minute." He replied.

With a high-pitched girlish shriek, Rhapsody suddenly bounded over to the door.

"Rhapsody found him." The Lunar smirked.

The bard threw herself at the man who'd just walked into the bar and he nearly tripped catching her in his arms. Although he wasn't as conventionally attractive as the one called Loren was, his hair was a very unusual shade of red and he was dressed entirely in white. A pair of little gold glasses perched on his nose and he wore a hearthstone around his neck that glowed like a fallen star. Even if I hadn't recognized him as Veritas Ilumio, the current incarnation of the infamous First Age artificer Perfect Mechanical Soul, I would have guessed that he was a Solar. From the way he stood up and started looking for an exit, Genji obviously knew that one of the ruling Anathema of Nexus had just made an appearance.

Still, Genji didn't make it as far as the door. He froze where he stood as Loren turned and caught sight of him. "Genji?" Loren seemed surprised. "What are you doing in Nexus?" He asked, speaking in perfect High Realm.

"Nothing!" Genji avoided his gaze. "My traveling companions wanted to stop here. It's ah... a lovely city. Very impressive." I was a little surprised to learn that the two men had already met. Genji had said nothing at all about having a friend in Nexus, but Loren seemed very pleased to see him.

"Well, I'd hoped to see you again. I wanted to thank you. I actually received word back from my father! He didn't say much, but he responded to the letter you sent for me!" Loren laughed. "I'd like to write to him again if you have the time to spare. You'll be compensated, of course. I realized after you left that I should have paid you for your paper before since I made you use so much of it." He sighed heavily. "I don't want you to feel as though you have to help me."

"It's no trouble." Genji replied. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Veritas, who was sitting with Rhapsody at the bar. The two were sharing a bottle of wine. It looked like they were very close, and that made me immediately suspicious. A Twilight Caste Solar of Veritas's reputation couldn't possibly have many ordinary friends. Rhapsody was a Solar herself, and the proprietress of Anathema's was obviously a Lunar, so that made a kind of sense. But who was this "Loren" who obviously knew him so well?

Belatedly, I realized who Genji was talking to. "Loren" was The Faeslayer!

I'd heard quite a bit about Nexus's most famous Solar, but I was surprised by how _nice_ he seemed to be. If a Dynast like Genji actually _liked _an Anathema, I was a little afraid of what kind of influence he might have on people who hadn't been indoctrinated from birth to believe that he was the very incarnation of all evil. Someone so powerfully charismatic could potentially wield a devastating amount of power.

"Tomorrow then. We'll have breakfast at White Gold Tower. And bring your friends, of course." The Faeslayer smiled. His smile was absolutely deadly. How could anyone hate someone who smiled like that?

"Of course." Genji echoed.

As The Faeslayer turned to walk away, Genji heaved an enormous sigh of relief.

From over at the bar, Rhapsody giggled.

"What's so funny?" I demanded, walking over to her.

"_Someone_ has a crush." She whispered.

I stared at her in disbelief. "Genji? But..."

Rhapsody smirked. "Sweetheart, are you _blind_?"

To be honest, I wasn't surprised to learn that Genji was attracted to men. He'd completely ignored Rhapsody and all of Anathema's whores who were the kind of women that could cause Immaculate monks to behave like fifteen year old schoolboys. Dynasts generally didn't place any sort of social stigma on same-sex relationships, but swooning after an Anathema was another matter entirely.

Not that I blamed Genji. Even if The Faeslayer was one of the most infamous "demons" in Creation, I had to admit that he was also unforgivably gorgeous.

"Ah, there you are!" Munno exclaimed, noticing me where I stood. The musicians had started to play a slower tune and most of the dancers had decided to leave the floor for a drink. "What's going on?" He asked.

"Apparently our traveling companion knows The Faeslayer." I replied.

"Genji?" Munno blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Oh yes, we're having breakfast with him tomorrow!" I groaned

"What's gotten into you, Estelle?" Munno demanded. "These last few days it seems that everything upsets you."

"I'm just worried." I replied, though that wasn't the whole truth. "You don't know that much about Solars, Munno. They can be dangerous."

"I don't know much about Sidereals either." He reminded me. "But I choose to trust you. Before you came with Genji to my home I'd been alone so long that I'd completely forgotten what it was like to have friends! When we danced in Great Forks, that was the first time I'd heard music like that in years! I did not realize how much I missed the world until you drug me back into it. I wouldn't have gone to reforge this sword if I'd had to do it alone. Heaven sent you, Estelle, to help me. Why do you find it so hard to believe that others might have been sent to help you?"

There was nothing I could say in response to _that_.

"Damnit, Munno!" I sighed heavily. "Why are you always right?"

He shrugged. "Aren't you supposed to be the expert on serenity?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I think the Maidens are all crazy. I should have been a Chosen of Battles. _You _would make a good Chosen of Serenity." I told him.

"Perish the thought. You Sidereals do too much paperwork." He teased, elbowing me.

"Tell me something I don't know." I rolled my eyes.

"Do you want to dance some more?" He asked.

"I've had enough madness for one night." I admitted. "In fact, I think I'm going to go get some sleep."

"All right." Munno was silent for a moment. There was clearly something on his mind, and though Genji was standing only a few feet away from us, the music and the sound of Rhapsody and Veritas arguing very loudly in Old Realm kept him from noticing that the two of us were talking and he wasn't being included in the conversation.

"I think you should know something." Munno announced. "I've been working out how to tell you. This place is a little busy, but..."

"Genji can't hear us?" I suggested.

Munno nodded. "Estelle, I'm not going home."

"Don't talk like that!" I scolded him. "I promised I'd see this through to the end. You won't be fighting that demon alone!"

"I know." Munno nodded. "But I also know that I'm not going home. That's Heaven's price for the sword being reforged." He finished. "This is the end for me. We will find the priest to bless the sword and then we will face Iyutha. But the sword can be used only once before it will break again. I cannot be thinking about my own life. I must be ready to lay it down just as I was the first time. That's why I want to make the most of the time I have left. I want to live the life that Haya would have wanted me to live."

"What does Genji's mother have to do with any of this?" I demanded.

"I thought you knew." He seemed surprised. "Estelle, she was my wife."

"You're serious?" I blinked in disbelief. "Are you Genji's father?"

Munno paused. He didn't answer my question, but I was sure that was because the answer was yes. "Genji is _so _like Haya! He acts the way he does because he_ thinks_ that is how a Prince of the Earth is supposed to act. Haya used to do the same thing. But when you begin to crack his shell, you find that he is a different man altogether. When he picks up his brush to write calligraphy, I see his mother in him. She would be very proud of him. I am very proud of him."

I took a deep breath. "Are you going to tell him?"

"I'm going to die, Estelle. I think it's better if Genji keeps the father who raised him." Munno paused.

"I think he would prefer to know the truth." I replied.

Munno sighed. "You're right. But I do need some time to think about this."

"I understand." I nodded. "Just don't wait too long."


	12. Chapter 12 - Sam

Sam

Though I wouldn't have guessed it possible, I actually missed the demon horse in my first two days of traveling with Jon. Because I was leading the way for him and didn't have a mount of my own, Jon felt obliged to walk with me along the Gray River, which meant that we covered almost no ground at all. Since the forest we were travelling through was partially shadowland, I didn't want to waste the Essence I needed for most of my better Charms. Worse still, Jon hadn't spontaneously "remembered" anything from his previous life at all. When I explained twice how he could use Essence to augment any skills he already had, he only stared at me incredulously.

Of course, even without Charms, Ronin could have easily carried us both, but it seemed unwise to tire him. If trouble reared its ugly head, that horse would be Jon's only means of escape. I had a trick I could use if I absolutely had to, but I wasn't going to risk the Paradox if I still had other options. And so we continued to walk.

Jon and I subsisted on the contents of my canteen, wild mushrooms, deer berries, and a squirrel I took with an improvised slingshot. The kid was baffled by my ability to scrounge up water and food, start fires, make sure we stayed dry, and keep pace with Ronin while walking on foot. Although the survival tricks of a Chosen of Journeys _are_fairly impressive, I realized that Jon would have been won over by the simplest snare in the book. He had absolutely no idea how to survive on his own.

I did my damnedest to give him a crash course, but I doubted it would save him. The kid was an expert rider, but he'd only ever trained in one style of martial arts and his formal education was all very traditional and likewise appallingly limited. Correctly conjugating verbs in High Realm wasn't going to do him much good while on the lam. If I hadn't stumbled into him when I did, I was sure Vivian would have caught him within hours. In other words, he was an ideal candidate for the Cult of the Illuminated... perfectly oblivious, easily impressed, and horrifyingly powerful.

The one thing Jon _didn't_lack was opinions, particularly when it came to subjects like religion and correct government. As we traveled, he'd pontificate for hours and ask me all sorts of incriminating questions. Giving him the answers he wanted would have put me in line for Audit, and after narrowly escaping the catastrophe my former superior Himitsu had created in Yu-Shan, I was in no hurry to share restricted information with another Solar. If Jon happened to stumble upon Veritas, the crazy Twilight Caste could explain everything to him and I'd have plausible deniability myself.

The reconstruction of ancient Nexus that had occurred last Calibration wasn't fully complete and although many buildings had been completely restored to their former splendor, some were stuck between ancient glory and present-day ruin. Veritas's manse was one such building, located two days from the city on the furthest edges of The Well of Udr's range. The massive factory cathedral was still buried in the same hill where it had fallen during the Usurpation, although I doubted that it would stay there for much longer. Veritas was determined to get his creation flying again, and when he set his mind to something he _always_got what he wanted. Like most Solars, he didn't really believe that anything was beyond his power.

I knew of a couple ways into Veritas's manse but I knew better than to expect a warm reception. Despite the fact that I've given him information that could get me mined for starmetal and saved his life more than once, Veritas still doesn't trust me at all and his right-hand construct, "Godchaser", hates Sidereals like the Deathlords hate the living.

We approached a set of enormous orichalcum doors. Surrounded by centuries of mud and creeping ivy, they looked very out-of-place on the side of the mountain. I'd never actually seen what the factory cathedral looked like in the old days, but I could imagine it. When Veritas got it fixed, a whole lot of people were going to take notice. Many eyes in Creation and Yu-Shan were already focused on Nexus, but returning one of the most notorious flying fortress of the First Age to the air would be unprecedented, just as activating The Well of Udr had been.

"What is this place?" Jon wondered uneasily, staring up.

"A First Age manse." I explained. "You've heard the story of how the Shogunate came to power, right?"

"Of course. There was a revolt. Against the tyranny of the Anathe... _Solars._" He corrected himself.

I'd warned Jon several times that he needed to purge that word from his vocabulary and for the most part he was doing a good job. He sometimes got a strange look on his face when he said the word "Solar", and I expected that was because he was still getting used to the idea of being one.

"This is what's left of the world they destroyed." I explained, gesturing to the doors. "Now, don't get me wrong, the Solars _were_corrupt! They _did_need to be taken down a few notches! But what people fail to understand today is that the Solars shouldn't have been wiped off the face of Creation. No one should_ever_ interfere with the work of the Incarnae, no matter how incomprehensible it seems!"

"But what if the Incarnae are corrupt?" Jon pressed. "Plenty of Gods are corrupt!"

"_Not_the Incarnae. They're incapable of it. Whatever they do is _a__lways_ right." I sighed heavily.

"How do you know that?" Jon demanded.

I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. "I work for Heaven."

"And you trust your "superiors" completely?" Jon frowned.

"Trust my superiors? No, that's idiocy!" I snorted. "But Mercury?" I purposefully illuminated my Caste Mark. "Yes. _Absolutely.__"_

"I think you're crazy." Jon informed me.

"And_you_ are naïve!" I sighed heavily. "But that's why we're here. You need to see what the Unconquered Sun didn't show you. You need to understand how big this is."

A little copper spider skittered in front of me and I immediately released my own automaton from my bracers. My spider was bigger and smarter than the tiny construct and nabbed it immediately in a snare of starmetal. I picked up the fine wire and dangled the little spider in front of my face.

"Hey Spider! Open up!" I ordered, certain that Veritas was already watching us.

"Go away, Sam." Veritas replied flatly.

Jon jumped like a scalded cat as a projection of Veritas suddenly appeared behind him.

The image was hazy, but it was somewhat clearer than it had been the last time I'd seen it.

"Aw, c'mon! I brought someone to meet you!" I grinned winningly.

"Not interested." He snorted. Jon tentatively reached out to touch the projection and gasped as his hand passed right through it.

"Are you a ghost?" He wondered uneasily.

"A _ghost_?" Veritas echoed. He had one of his nastiest, condescending expressions on his face. "Who is this imbecile?"

"Show him your target." I elbowed Jon. "We've already been over this!"

Jon sighed heavily. He bowed his head for a moment and when he looked up, his Caste Mark was burning. He looked painfully distressed and glanced over his shoulder nervously as if he expected that a Wyld Hunt would suddenly emerge and fill him full of arrows.

"Oh Godchaser?" Veritas called for his construct. I didn't hear what he said to it, or what it said in return, but the obnoxious tittering laughter was difficult to ignore. Apparently she thought something was _very_funny.

"My assistant informs me that you are not a Sidereal." Veritas smiled slightly. "You may come in. Although please leave your horse outside."

Jon hesitated. Ronin snorted and began grazing. He'd apparently discovered a particularly tempting patch of grass, and it seemed as though he would stay put... and with the amount of surveillance that Veritas had in place, we'd know immediately if anyone found us.

"May I come in?" I asked.

Veritas snorted. "If you touch anything, I will shoot you with my resonance inducer."

I grimaced. That wasn't an idle threat coming from him, and I'd seen up close and personal what that device could do. It destabilized the natural Essence flow of any being it was aimed at, exploding Resplendent Destinies, forcing Gods to discorporate, and causing Exalts to immediately start flaring their animas.

The doors opened in front of us with only the faintest whisper. Blue glowing essence lights led the way down the narrow corridor. The projection of Veritas vanished and Jon followed me at some distance, staring up at the ceiling. The doors behind us closed, and when we reached the end of the entry hall, another set of doors in front of us opened.

Jon swore incoherently as his eyes adjusted to the light. I could smell the distinct scent of liquid orichalcum and feel the heat radiating from the huge plasma furnace. With the outer shell of the smelter removed, it looked like there was a little sun about ten feet in diameter hovering in the middle of the room. Three warbirds and another airship were rigged to the ceiling at least a hundred feet above our heads. The walls were lined with thousands of books and the remainder of the workshop was littered with all kinds of strange tools and half-finished projects, not to mention enormous stacks of crumpled paper and a pillar of broken pencils that had actually grown into a living tree. Armies of tiny mechanical spiders were hard at work everywhere, cleaning up messes.

I'd seen the inside of Veritas's manse before, but it never failed to impress.

With a gleeful shriek, Godchaser came flying to meet us. Normally she looked like a cloak with a humanoid face but with her outer covering removed, she bore a closer resemblance to a man-sized orichalcum spider. Jon stared at the construct, at least until her "Maker" made his appearance.

Veritas wasn't very physically imposing. He was tall and thin with a shock of red hair and a short beard. He wore glasses that always seemed to be sliding down his nose and wouldn't have looked out of place sitting behind a desk at some university. When he was busy working, he tended to dress simply in white monkish attire. Of course, since he'd been in the process of repairing his plasma furnace, he was also wearing meticulously crafted forge gauntlets and a circlet which was set with a cracked piece of stone burned as black as charcoal. Though few would recognize it for what it was, Veritas had told me in no uncertain terms that it was all that remained of his protoscemaic vortex, a gift given to him by the Unconquered Sun which had formerly contained one of the souls of The Weeping Maiden.

Even if his Caste Mark hadn't been burning, he would have looked terrifying. It's difficult not to be wary around someone who casually turns a Primordial into a piece of jewelry.

Jon looked like he wanted to say something, but he swallowed whatever it was. "You're..."

"Veritas Ilumio." He nodded cordially in Jon's direction. "And you are?"

"Jon. Nellens Jon." Jon replied.

"Are you from Lookshy?" Veritas guessed. "Any relationship to Nellens Satoshi, the head of Municipal Security?"

"My father." Jon admitted.

"Really? Oh, Faeslayer will love you!" Veritas exclaimed.

"He will?" Jon eyed him suspiciously.

"Yes. His father is Dragonlord Cathak Chiron." Veritas laughed. "I suppose you were also raised on that "Princes of the Earth" nonsense?"

"It doesn't matter. I can't go home." Jon shook his head. "I can _never_ go home. Everyone saw. I was about to be executed. And now... I don't even know. I've never been so lost."

Veritas paused. "How long has it been?" He asked.

Jon bit his lip. "Six days."

"Sun-in-Glory! Why, you got here very fast!" Veritas laughed. "Jon, six days after I Exalted, I was wandering in the mountains and living on deer berries. I spent every waking moment expecting to be found and killed. You'll begin to feel differently. I promise you that."

"Sit down." Veritas offered. A chair came running up as he summoned it, and Jon balked again.

"It won't eat you." I reassured him. "At least I don't think it will."

Veritas gave me an exasperated look.

Jon heaved a sigh of relief as he sat down and I gathered that was probably because he'd been about to fall over. Even other Solars found Veritas overwhelming and intimidating, which was precisely why I'd decided to take Jon to meet him first. He needed to understand the magnitude of what he'd just become part of, and it seemed safest to first expose him to well-contained Essence fields and constructs that weren't trying to tear his head off.

"So what are you working on, Spider?" I asked, mostly to break the silence. I stared up at the hovering ball of plasma and then at the piles of parts all over the floor.

Veritas watched me with a focus that made me feel a bit like a moth in a glass jar.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He smirked.

"He's forging a sword." Jon observed.

I noticed that he was looking at several pieces of bent metal and almost touched the mold before I remembered that Veritas had threatened to shoot me with his resonance inducer if I didn't keep my hands to myself. "I thought you didn't like making weapons." I remarked. A chair came scurrying up behind me and I sat down.

"I don't. An ordinary sword would be a waste of my time and my talents. But this... is something a bit different." He smiled slightly and casually tossed me a shard of something that I thought was starmetal, at least until I held it in the palm of my hand. It was as heavy as orichalcum but resonated in a way that made me think of living moonsilver. "Have you ever heard the story of Heaven-Sent Munno?" He asked.

"This is a shard of the Heaven-Sent Sword?" Jon blinked in disbelief as I passed the fragment to him. "You're going to reforge it?"

"I already tried to." Veritas admitted.

"And?" I asked. It was no secret to me that the same demon that the legendary Munno had once slain was currently freed again in the south, and from the expression on his face, obviously Jon had heard the same rumors.

"Sidereal, why do you think I'm rebuilding my plasma furnace?" He demanded.

"So you couldn't do it?" I pressed.

"Oh, I can do it!" He replied with a slight smirk. "I just haven't figured out _how_yet." Veritas sighed heavily. "But that's the beauty of this puzzle! It may take me centuries to sort it out!" He took the shard back from Jon. "Crafting _life_is actually easier than forging the will of Heaven into a blade!"

Jon stared at Veritas's pencil tree. Two mechanical spiders skittered up into its branches and plucked a pencil as if it were a piece of ripe fruit. With a tiny blade of Essence, one construct sharpened the pencil and then the other delivered it to Veritas. He examined the point with a slight smile and then stuck the pencil behind his ear.

A dozen more spiders pushed a little tea cart in our direction and began to serve each of us in turn. I stirred a little honey into my cup and sipped it thoughtfully. It was stepped just the right amount, not that I expected anything less from Veritas, who in his previous incarnation had been known as "Perfect".

"How long have you been... doing this?" Jon asked.

"Doing what?" Veritas frowned.

"Making pencils into trees." Jon fumbled for words. It was unlike him to be so inarticulate, but I could only imagine the thoughts that must have been whirling through his head. He sipped his tea.

"Oh. Three years." Veritas answered.

"And what did you do... before?" Jon wondered.

"I was an Immaculate monk." Veritas replied.

"_What_?" Jon sputtered, spilling his tea everywhere.

"Our patron does have quite a sense of humor." Veritas smirked.

"What do you know about the Unconquered Sun?" Jon wondered.

"Not much if you want the truth. Faeslayer remembers him somewhat from the Primordial War, but I spent much more time with Autochthon myself. You're not a believer?" Veritas smiled slightly. "And yet Sol Invictus wants you for one of his priests?"

"I was raised in House Nellens. I'd never even met a heretic until three years ago." Jon admitted. "There must be some kind of mistake."

"Oh no! There's no mistake!" Veritas laughed. "The Incarnae don't make mistakes!"

"Sam said that too." Jon admitted.

"Don't believe anything Sam says! He's a _Sidereal_." Godchaser warned. It was the first the construct had said in a long while, and it gave me a little chill to see her hovering ominously behind me. In the Bureau of Destiny, there's no artifact more feared. Because of her ability to identify and track any Essence being used, Godchaser can easily identify any Exalt, even under a Resplendent Destiny. I've picked up more Paradox traveling with her than I have working for Oversight, and that's saying something.

"Well, in this case, I believe Sam is right." Veritas grudgingly admitted. "You may not understand yet, but you will. You've been Chosen, Jon. You're still yourself, and you're meant to follow your passion, whatever that may be. The difference is, you now have the capacity to do more than you could before. The impossible is now possible." He gestured to his pencil tree.

Jon nodded slightly.

"You should see Roach in Nexus." Veritas suggested. "He perceives things somewhat differently than I do, and maybe the way he puts it will make more sense to you."

"What about Faeslayer?" I suggested. Of all the Nexus Solars, he was my favorite. I'd been assigned to him for two years and he was an amazingly likable guy, charismatic, brave, and honest to a fault.

"He's off killing fiends again. I've no idea where." Veritas admitted. "But rest assured, if you're in Nexus for long enough, you'll eventually meet everyone. Here." Veritas handed Jon a small white key. "You can stay at my house."

"But we've only just met!" Jon protested. "How can you trust me?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't trust you?" Veritas raised an eyebrow at Jon.

Jon did not respond. I decided not to remind him that Veritas was obsessively paranoid. Like his manse, his house was filled with tiny constructs who constantly reported back to their maker.

At that moment a spider came scurrying up to Veritas and whispered something in his ear.

"There's a cow outside." He remarked.

"A cow?" It took me a moment to realize that he didn't mean Ronin.

I immediately jumped out of my seat and ran for the door. Jon followed me.

A familiar nicker that I hadn't heard in far too long caught my attention and sure enough, my Crow was standing next to Ronin. She was all tacked up and ready to go with my usual equipment and provisions fresh from Yu-Shan. Someone had even groomed her, which meant that her black and white spots looked especially striking. A lack of exercise had caused her to put on a little weight, by my mare certainly didn't look like a cow!

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I exclaimed, not sure if I ought to be praising my Division head, my Oversight Field Supervisor, or Mercury herself for my sudden change in fortune.

Crow ruffled my hair with her nose and nibbled my shirt.

"Someone brought your horse?" Jon observed. "Where did they go?"

"A Chosen of Endings hiding under a Resplendent Destiny." Veritas supplied, standing in the doorway of his manse. "Godchaser caught her and she ran off."

"You paradoxed Vivian?" I turned to the construct.

"Hee!" She exclaimed gleefully.

"I can't decide how I feel about that." I admitted. True, she _had _brought Crow to me, but she'd also stolen the horse I'd borrowed in Lookshy and tried to take Jon to The Cult of the Illuminated without me. I didn't know what to make of the situation, but I was beginning to suspect I was not the only one working for Oversight.

"I suppose this means it's time for us to go?" Jon suggested.

"Heh. You're beginning to think like a Chosen of Journeys." I informed him with a smile.

Jon beamed, at least until Veritas cracked him swiftly across the back of the head.

"That's _not_a complement!" He scolded. "All Sidereals are scoundrels!"

"And all Solars are lunatics!" I retorted.

Veritas said nothing in response, but the expression on his face told me I'd won. Though most Solars were not aware of it, the Three Circles Society had uncovered a very old, very devastating secret.

All Solars _were_insane. They were cursed by the Primordials they'd helped the Incarnae to slay thousands of years ago. Of course, I didn't tell Jon that, and Veritas wasn't likely to admit it either. The moment a Solar found out anything they weren't supposed to know, a dozen forms had to be filled out and sent post-haste to the Division of Secrets. Really, it was better to keep the kid in the dark about certain things, at least until I got some new orders myself.

The last thing I needed while dodging Vivian, working for Oversight, and risking a potential Audit... was more _paperwork_ to do.


	13. Chapter 13 - Tetsuo

7 – The Riders Al-Khayl

After a few days out in the shadowlands riding Paradox, I was more lost than I'd ever been in my life. Of course, because I'd run straight from Ereshkigal, I didn't have any food or water, and for some reason my demonic mount wouldn't set a hoof back in Creation. I remembered Brock explaining why the Al-Khayl could only move in shadowlands or bordermarshes once before, but I hadn't listened to him very well. I'd always assumed that I'd never actually have to deal with his damned demon horses. They were mean, they smelled bad, and I couldn't shake the feeling that they were much, much smarter than they appeared to be. I was somewhat tempted to just let Paradox trot off back to Malfeas, but I figured that riding one of the Al-Khayl would probably lead me to Brock quicker than anything else I could pull out of my sleeves.

I had to use my head, and I had to act very carefully if I didn't want to be caught and drug back to Yu-Shan in shackles. With everything that had happened, I couldn't risk blackmailing any God who might put the pieces together and realize that the untouchable Dorobo had acquired a very nasty set of marionette strings.

What bothered me most was that I hadn't tested the extent of my new strength. I'd spontaneously remembered all kinds of interesting things, but I knew that burning Essence in Shadowland was like tossing money into a campfire, a waste you weren't going to see any real return on.

I racked my brain for any useful information about Sidereals. I knew that there weren't many of them, that they lived in Yu Shan, and that they were usually grouchy and overworked... but that was about it. I also respected the power they held. Most couldn't match a God like my father, but all of the lesser deities tended to tread lightly around them.

Of course, everything I thought I knew about the Chosen of the Maidens might not even apply to me. I wasn't naïve enough to think that Jupiter loved me as she'd claimed to when she posed as Anastacia. But then again, if she felt nothing for me at all, why had she kissed me? Why had she teased me with my cufflinks and drug me into bed with her? Of course, I hadn't _resisted_, but she certainly could have coerced me to do what she wanted with Charms or bribed me with something spectacular. With all of the power and wealth that Jupiter had, she'd given me herself... and that didn't make any sense.

I took a deep breath. If falling for a beautiful, dangerous con-artist had been like playing with fire, I couldn't possibly find the words to describe how _stupid _it was for me to continue daydreaming about Jupiter. I was nothing to her! Why did it matter that she'd left me? Why did I feel so empty knowing that she wasn't coming back? If there had been a bar within a hundred miles of me, I would have drunk myself under the table and told Burning Feather the most epic alcohol-soaked sob story in the history of ill-fated affairs.

I needed to talk to someone who might actually prove to be useful and my father's letter had given me some idea of who I could probably write to. It had been years since I'd thought about my childhood sifu, Susurrare Mercis, but since I'd rode out from Sijan I'd found myself obsessing over everything she'd ever said or done. Though I hadn't understood it all at the time, she'd been preparing me. She'd known all along what my Fate would be, and she'd molded me just so I'd stumble kicking and screaming right into it.

Like Jupiter herself, "Whisper" clearly preferred the long con. Despite being a skilled martial artist, she would never hurt anyone that she didn't have to and the sight of blood actually made her sick. Because of her "soft" nature, I knew she'd try to manipulate me or simply ditch me somewhere before she'd stab me in the back, and that basic decency was about all I could ask for. It helped that Whisper was also one of my father's closest friends and a member of the Division I'd just been drafted into.

Though I didn't actually know how to summon the thing, I suspected that if I crossed back into Creation, my mailbox might make another appearance. Still, I felt compelled to heed my father's warning. Plenty of Gods in addition to Ereshkigal were probably already looking for me, and if I wanted to avoid Fate's agents until I could prevent Lord Khaaj from getting his hands on The Heaven-Sent Sword, I needed to keep my head down. It was not something I liked to do, but it _was _something I was good at.

My mind was still whirling with possibilities and plans when Paradox suddenly stopped walking. There was a little bit of running water blocking our path, and the demon horse stared at that pathetic creek as if he were looking into the maw of a Primordial floating in the deep Wyld. The sun was beginning to set and I didn't like the looks of the place we'd come to. I imagined I'd like it even less after dark.

I dug my heels into the demon horse's sides and tried to force him to ignore the running water, but Paradox pulled hard on the reins and reared up on his hind legs. Of course, when he did that, I slipped right out of my saddle and landed flat on my back. Hitting the ground knocked the wind right out of me. I stared up a Paradox and grimaced. His breath smelled like sulfur, but at least he hadn't run off and left me for dead.

A familiar laugh caught my attention. I sat up as quickly as I could and turned just in time to see Brock phasing into visibility on the back of his demon horse. I didn't know where he'd come from, but with the Al-Khayl, distance was relative, so I supposed it didn't actually matter whether he'd been following me or traveling in the opposite direction.

"Evenin', Tetsuo." Brock smiled slightly. His spectral warhammer was resting on his shoulder and he was covered in mud and blood. It looked as though he'd just won a serious fight. "You look like you've been drug under a wagon." He remarked.

"It's been a rough week." I snorted, brushing myself off. For a moment, I considered telling him what had actually happened, but I got the nasty feeling that the two of us were being watched and decided against it. My father's veil would protect me from having my secrets stolen from any Gods or demons I crossed paths with. Sooner or later, everyone would know what had really happened. I only hoped I could move faster than the rumors that were already circulating.

"I thought as much. You had to use my whistle?" It wasn't really a question.

"It was either that or I let Ereshkigal drop another building on me." I replied.

Brock grimaced. He knew quite a bit about my past relationship with the God of Sijan and none of it was pretty. "Where's the heiress? Did she stab you in the back?" Brock wondered.

"No, she disappeared. And good riddance!" I knew my brave words didn't sound convincing, but Brock was a good guy and wouldn't give me grief over a woman. Of course, when I ran into Dorian Gray again... he was never going to let me live my humiliation down. He'd promised that Anastacia would eat me alive. But had he guessed who she really was? I doubted it. Dorian was crafty, but he wasn't nearly powerful enough to play dice with the Incarnae themselves.

"So you didn't get into Yu Shan?" Brock observed.

"I'm not going to try anymore. The situation has changed." I replied.

"Oh?" Brock raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"It's complicated. I'll tell you about it once I've had something to eat." I paused. Of course, being a ghost, Brock wasn't in the habit of carrying food or water with him, but I did not doubt that he understood how to direct the Al-Khayl much better than I did.  
"I suppose you could come with me then. There will be food, though I can't promise you'll like it." Brock admitted, a slight smile on his face. "Fang has so many Wyld-mutations he's practically Fae himself and Lucretia is a daughter of the Goddess of High Treason. Anything the two of them cook up will either be trying to eat you or slightly poisonous. Makes a man glad to be dead." He added.

"I don't know. I'm pretty hungry, and I've downed some funky things while in Stygia before. So do I know these people?" I wondered. The names didn't sound familiar, but that didn't mean I hadn't crossed paths with either of the two, only that I hadn't found them to be particularly memorable.

"Not yet. They're the other Riders." Brock replied.

"Other riders?" I raised an eyebrow in his direction.

"The Riders Al-Khayl. Not counting Lord Khaaj, there are three of us... Fang, Lucretia, and me." He explained. "There used to be four, but Khamsah has a habit of killing his masters."

He gestured to my demon horse.

"Wonderful." I rolled my eyes.

Khamsah-Paradox made his nasty cat noise again. Maat replied with a similar noise and I eyed the two of them suspiciously. I got the distinct impression that the demon horses were laughing at both of us.

Brock sighed and dismounted. He took Paradox's bridle and gave him a solid whap on the nose. The demon horse let me mount again with no small amount of pawing.

We rode out of the shadowland we were passing through and into another, darker shadowland. In a copse of trees burned black there was a small camp set up, and two figures in nondescript cloaks were sitting near a fire. We turned our demon horses loose with theirs. One of the creatures was nosing around in the dry grass. For a moment looked like it was grazing and I blinked in surprise, because I hadn't seen Paradox do any such thing. When the demon horse seized a live snake exactly as a hawk would snatch a rabbit, I realized that if I kept looking at the Al-Khayl like ordinary animals, I'd probably wind up getting one of my hands bitten off.

The glint of a dagger caught my attention and I instinctively reached for my own weapon. I didn't like to use my secret knife if I didn't have to, but I knew better than to presume that a yozi's servants would be reasonable people that I could actually negotiate with. It was the female Rider who had drawn her blade, the one Brock had called Lucretia. I was familiar with her mother, the Goddess of High Treason, and she'd obviously inherited her old lady's looks. She was the definitive femme fatale with long black hair and skin the color of alabaster. If I hadn't suffered such an eye-opening experience so recently, I might have thrown caution to the wind and made a pass at her. As it was, I somewhat doubted that I would ever pursue a very attractive woman ever again. Average girls were much less likely to be trouble. When the two of us came closer, I decided that Lucretia wasn't as beautiful as I'd initially guessed, and certainly no prize in comparison to Anastacia. Her nose was too sharply pointed and her hard, cold, eyes reminded me of the Al-Khayl. Though I didn't know anything about her, I felt certain that she was not a nice person.

"Who are you?" Lucretia demanded.

Her companion stirred whatever was cooking over their campfire. It didn't smell very appetizing, but I was extremely hungry and in no position to protest. When the second rider glanced up at me, his eyes reflected light where there wasn't any. He was very short and rat-faced with a mess of greasy gray hair and a few extra pounds carried around his midsection. Though Brock had mentioned that "Fang" suffered a plethora of Wyld-mutations, I didn't notice anything extraordinary about him, besides the fact that his teeth were very noticeable and his eyes did not blink frequently enough.

"This is my friend, Tetsuo." Brock explained. "Lord Khaaj wants to meet him."

"You're the secret thief? Brilliant!" The second rider exclaimed. "Brock told me about your trick. Can you really learn someone's secrets just by standing close to them?"

"It's not a thing I choose to do." I lied. Because my secret-fetching ability used Essence, I already knew that it would work better than ever before the next time I tried to employ it. "Sometimes I get a secret, sometimes I don't."

"Oh." Fang seemed disappointed, buying my lie completely. Brock rolled his eyes, but neither Fang nor Lucretia seemed to notice. I watched Brock for what felt like a long while. Just how much had my old friend told the Riders about me? He'd obviously informed Khaaj that I was Dorobo, and that was something I didn't appreciate. It made me worry that I shouldn't have told him the truth about my father.

"So, you want to join the Riders Al-Khayl, do you?" Lucretia snorted. She appraised me with a critical eye. "You won't last a week!"

"Woman, you don't know anything about me!" I informed her. "And for your information, I'm not interested in joining your little club. Not unless your friend Khaaj makes me a very good offer."

"You don't _choose _to work for Lord Khaaj, arrogant boy." Lucretia replied sweetly. "Let me see, how can I put it? If he likes you, you won't have the option to refuse. And you'd better hope he likes you!"

"Tetsuo can handle himself." Brock replied, coming to my defense.

"What is this crud you're eating?" I wrinkled my nose as the two of us sat down near the fire.

"Squid." Fang supplied. "And um, cat, I guess. Squid cat. Squitten." He poked something in the pot with his cooking spoon and it actually made a noise.

"I think I'll pass. How far is the nearest village?" I asked.

"The Al-Khayl won't go into Creation." Lucretia informed me, as if that was something I didn't already know.

"Not far. About two miles that way." Brock pointed across the creek. I could see a little road snaking through the trees. The sun was almost completely down, but it wouldn't be difficult to follow such a well-traveled path, even in the dark.

"That close? So why are we cooking ourselves a bad case of Wyld pox?" I asked.

"Tastes fine to me." Fang replied, sipping some of the broth from his cooking spoon. Between the smell coming from Fang's pot and the stink of the four demon horses, I decided I'd had enough.

"Suit yourselves. If it's only two miles to food and a bed, I'm going to walk it." I informed the Riders.

"Do you honestly think you can just waltz into some tiny little village in the heart of the Scavenger Lands and be welcomed with open arms?" Lucretia demanded. "People who live in these parts don't like strangers."

I smirked. "There's this thing called charisma which you obviously don't know anything about. And I have it, so... yes, I _can_ walk right up to a house where I don't know anyone and ask the owner to let me in. We'll have a drink, I'll tell a few jokes, and by the end of the night he'll be asking me if I want to move in. I can get away with..."

"Murder?" Lucretia interrupted, finishing my sentence, presumably the way she thought it was supposed to end. She was obviously fishing to see if she could dredge up any of my dirty laundry. I felt the Charm she was using and ignored it. Lucretia obviously thought she had skills, but she was clumsy. I doubted she could take my money if we were playing mah jong. If it was my secrets she wanted, she would have to improve her game.

"Please. Do I look like I'm dumb enough to get my own hands dirty?" I rolled my eyes. "I'm a smuggler, not some stupid skull-busting barbarian. Everyone has a price, and I'm an expert at finding out what those prices are. Why would I stab a potential business partner?"

Truthfully, I had never killed anyone and had no intention of ever doing so, but that comment seemed to convince Lucretia to keep her mouth shut.

Fang giggled hysterically. He sloshed some of his soup concoction into the fire as he stirred it and it literally threw sparks into the air.

Brock watched me suspiciously. Like most ghosts, he didn't like to spend too much time around the living. While I still had questions for him about his master and wouldn't have minded his company, I found Khaaj's other lackeys to be extremely irritating and couldn't wait to get away from them.

"Will you be here if I come back in the morning?" I asked.

"Why should we wait for you?" Lucretia demanded.

"Lord Khaaj wants to meet him." Brock replied. "We'll be here."

I smiled, enjoying the way those words made Lucretia squirm.

Though the last thing I wanted was to take a long walk after Paradox had dumped me flat on my back earlier, crossing into Creation made me feel much better. It was like taking that first deep breath of air after being submerged underwater. The stars in the sky seemed unusually bright and the moon was almost full. The Mask had moved again and I wished I had my star chart or at least a piece of paper to write on. While I knew I needed to keep a low profile, especially since I still hadn't met Lord Khaaj, I made my way down the road so quickly that I wondered if I had used a Charm reflexively. For a Godblood, virtually any Charm required effort. Clearly, I had a lot to learn about being Exalted.

As the village came within sight, I caught a whiff of something that smelled absolutely delicious and followed my nose to a little footbridge that spanned the creek. There was a woman standing on the bridge dressed like a princess in a flowing layered kimono of black, gold and, emerald green. Her long hair was auburn and full of curls. I couldn't see her face, but she looked very out-of-place. Someone dressed so fine certainly didn't live in a thatch-roofed hut, and yet the sheep and the goats grazing nearby seemed perfectly comfortable in her presence. I felt comfortable myself, except for a strange little tickle right between my eyes.

I slipped down to the riverbank and took off my father's veil, which was covered in sweat and dust from the shadowlands. I rinsed it clean and splashed some freezing cold water in my face, running my fingers through my hair. Looking down at my reflection in the still water, I saw a little spark of unnatural green light. My Caste Mark was flickering. I'd specifically avoided using any Essence while traveling through bordermarshes and shadowlands on Paradox. So... _why_?

I approached the woman on the bridge. I didn't want to disturb her, but I didn't want to scare her either. The woman turned around. I didn't have the opportunity to hide or tie my father's veil back around my head.

"Tetsuo!" Anastacia exclaimed. Seeing her face caused my heart to skip a beat. She ran towards me and I threw my arms around her. Our lips met and I held her close, fighting tears.

"I thought I was never going to see you again." I confessed.

"I won't abandon you. _Never_." Anastacia whispered, resting her head on my chest. For a moment we stood and swayed, as if in a slow dance. All I could hear was the wind and the water, and the sound of Anastacia's heartbeat close to mine.

Then I remembered who she really was.

_Jupiter_.

I had no business touching one of the Incarnae! Had I completely lost my mind?

I let her go very slowly and took a deep breath. As I stepped back, I brushed myself off, trying to recover what little dignity I had left. "I apologize." It was all I could say. How stupid was I, thinking that things could go back to the way they had been?

"Idiot!" She scolded me. "If I wanted you to grovel, I would have appeared in a blaze of glory! I really hate doing that though. The Unconquered Sun does it all of the time and it's bloody damned obnoxious!"

"So you really are Jupiter?" It felt like something I needed to ask, even though I already knew the answer to my question.

"Yes." She replied.

"And you were all along?" I pressed.

"You know there's no _real _Anastacia Commissa. You learned that _weeks_ before I expected you to." Jupiter reminded me.

"But everything?" Words wouldn't come to me. "Why?"

"All secrets have a price, Tetsuo." She explained. "There are many, many things that I cannot tell _anyone_, not even my sisters. But you'd be bored to tears if you knew everything. You wouldn't be able to tolerate it. Besides, I thought "mysterious" was your type?" She whispered seductively.

"You're not mysterious, you're completely unfathomable!" I protested, throwing my hands in the air. When Jupiter behaved like Anastacia, it was all too easy to forget that I was taking to an immensely powerful Goddess.

"And you like that even better, don't you?" She teased. "Yes, I have far more secrets than you could ever steal. But you won't have to fight me for all of them. Some I want to give to you. If you'll let me." Out of nowhere, Jupiter produced my green coat which I vaguely remembered either losing or destroying. It was perfectly clean. I noticed my cufflinks immediately. They glimmered differently than I remembered and I wondered if it was polish or something more that I was seeing.

Cold as it was, I didn't refuse Jupiter when she helped me slip my coat on. For a long moment, we stared in silence at one another.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Well, it started simply enough. I realized that I hadn't actually _met _any of my Chosen, not in 1,500 years. Luna personally blesses all of hers and it seemed unfair. And when I heard about you, I couldn't resist." Jupiter smirked.

"There's no need to flatter me." I replied.

"I'm not flattering you!" She rolled her eyes. "I said I wanted to meet you, I didn't say I was impressed!" Jupiter paused. "But I'm afraid there's more to it than that. The timing was perfect. I used you as an excuse to get away from The Games of Divinity."

"Why?" I wondered. From my experiences in Yu Shan, virtually every God was trying to get _into _The Games, not the other way around.

Jupiter shuddered. "There's no drug in Heaven or Creation more addicting. I started to suspect that there was something wrong when I noticed how Saturn was moving. I invented an exit strategy which you were part of and it cost me quite a lot. I should be furious with myself for being so sloppy, but right now I find myself wondering if I'll ever go back at all. What I didn't anticipate was how wonderful freedom would feel! The Games are _horrible, _more horrible than any of the Incarnae know. I'd say that we should bring a stop to them if I thought that we could."

That was a lot for me to stomach. Many Gods suspected that The Games of Divinity were addictive, but I'd never thought of them as a drug before and I'd never expected that any of the Incarnae might be unable to quit.

"So what do you want from me?" I wondered.

"Oh, I plan on keeping you _very_ busy, my thief." Jupiter laughed. "Presently, someone wants the entire Division of Secrets to look bad, and I take offense to this. Auditing Nara-O and blaming my sweet Whisper for all the mess caused by Himitsu! Absurd! A Chosen of Endings goes rogue, a bunch of Solars free a Primordial, and suddenly everyone is pointing fingers at _my_ agents? There's something rotten in The Bureau of Destiny and I want to know who's responsible."

"The Mask is moving." I paused.

"Ye, it is. And even I don't know why, though I suspect that it has something to do with the way Saturn is playing in The Games. My little sister is up to something and I will find out what! But unraveling the mess right now in The Games is my problem. What I need you to do is watch that yozi, the one they call Khaaj. It's best if he doesn't get the Heaven-Sent Sword. That weapon can only be used once but it's very powerful and could have devastating consequences in the wrong hands."

"I already knew that." I replied.

"I knew you already knew." She retorted.

"Then why did you tell me?" I wondered.

"Oh, don't make me pontificate! I could give you plenty of good reasons, Tetsuo, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you'd only roll your eyes at me." She paused. "You are far too jaded to be so young!"

"I'm an old soul." I replied, enjoying the look she gave me, her hands planted firmly on her hips. I wasn't sure if she'd chosen to adopt Anastacia's usual mannerisms for my sake or because everything Anastacia had been, Jupiter really was.

"Now, I'm nowhere near as hedonistic as my sister Venus!" Jupiter sighed. She brushed my hair out of my eyes and traced the mark on my brow with a slight smile. It felt intensely weird but I didn't pull away. "But it annoys me that you're not happy! I don't _need_ another sniveling sycophant and I don't _want_ a mindless slave! I want you to do what you do best, what you are _passionate_ about!"

"You want me to break rules and screw people over?" I hazarded a guess.

"I want you to break stupid rules and screw bad people over." She corrected.

"That's sort of the problem." I admitted. "I don't really have a feel for that. I'm used to taking out the easiest mark, and this Khaaj isn't going to be easy."

"Perhaps not, but playing that fiend for a fool will be _entirely _worth it!" She promised. "A con like this will make you legendary, and as dangerous as it may be, it won't get you in nearly as much trouble as trying to steal a Solar Essence for a Deathlord."

"You knew about that?" I grimaced. There was no sense in denying what I'd been planning to do, but the more I thought back on the Stygian coin job, the more it left a bad taste in my mouth. Hearing that my father had come up for Audit had made me abandon it, and though I still hadn't heard a whisper from Seven Seasons Widow, there was no way I was going to follow through with what I'd promised before.

"Of course, my thief. You can't keep secrets from The Maiden of Secrets." Jupiter smirked. "Honestly! You _know _you want to try Khaaj, Tetsuo! How can you possibly resist the opportunity to take him down a few notches? He's an arrogant bastard, his followers are scoundrels, and you already know that he exploits your friend Brock. I promise you, being one of the good guys will be much more_ fun _than you think!" She tousled my hair. "And I'll see you again soon!" She promised.

Then she was gone.

The heavenly smell that had drawn me to the little bridge remained. Following my nose, I discovered a little white and orange paper lunch box. I recognized the lid and realized that whatever was inside had come from _The Divine Peach_ in Nexus. Opening the box, I discovered two rice balls, four steamed dumplings, a skewer of slow-roasted chicken, and a generous helping of the restaurant's signature peach sorbet. A little bottle of plum wine was also waiting for me.

"Oh, you _are s_pectacular!" I laughed aloud. I was sure Jupiter heard me.

I spent a long while savoring my meal and staring up at the stars. Before I picked myself up and went in search of a bed for the night, I glanced at my reflection in the creek again. Thanks to Jupiter, I actually looked presentable and felt like a human being, instead of some half-mad, starved animal.

I took stock of my new appearance, veil, coat and cufflinks. I'd only had a week to come to terms with what had happened to me. I had no idea how to use the powers I had and I was already embroiled in a Celestial conspiracy that went straight to the top. There was a strong possibility that I could step on the wrong toes and get blasted into starmetal... and yet I couldn't stop myself from grinning like a madman. In his letter to me, my father had expressed his hopes that I would separate myself from "Dorabo" and become only Tetsuo, Chosen of Secrets.

But then again... Jupiter did call me her "thief" with a smile on her face. Maybe I wasn't supposed to turn over a new leaf? Maybe what Heaven really needed was someone reckless enough to shake things up a little more right when everyone else started getting scared? It was something worth considering.

I found myself a generous old widow who put me up for the night and managed to steal a few hours sleep. In the morning I rejoined the Riders Al-Khayl and discovered that their master was with Brock. He had decided that we would meet just after sundown at Aerope's Mask, familiar territory for me. The demon horses covered the distance impossibly quickly and I was all too glad to be home.

Before the sun went down and Brock made his appearance with Lord Khaaj in tow, I poured myself a good stiff drink and tried to ignore the critical stares that Lucretia cast in my direction. Although she didn't say anything, I felt as though she could somehow see right through my father's veil. I was as self-conscious as if she'd caught me sitting with Jupiter on the bridge.

"You've changed, Tetsuo." Brock observed, appearing on the bench beside me. I was sitting outside watching Lucretia and Fang's demon horses fighting over a rabbit that one of them had killed.

"Have I?" I raised an eyebrow in his direction. Paradox was trying to eat my shroud cloth, and so I elbowed him in the nose. He spit a wad of glowing yellow snot on me and pranced away.

"So you are going to join the Riders?" He pressed. "You've never served anyone before. It's not as if you'll have a conflict of interests."

At the same time that I still wanted to confess the truth to Brock, I also sensed that it was probably not a good idea to say anything with Khaaj around. The yozi hadn't made his appearance yet, but I knew he was probably watching us. "If Khaaj wants my help, he gets it on my terms. I'm not swearing to him or anyone else." I decided.

"He won't like that." Brock informed me.

"I don't give a damn what he likes." I retorted.

Brock smiled slightly. "Now you sound like yourself again. What happened to you in Sijan?"

"A lot." I admitted. "I'm still reconciling it all."

"I suspected as much. Take your time." Brock nodded. "But you know, Lord Khaaj could protect you from those Agents of Heaven... what is it that you always call them?"

"_Sidereals._" Lucretia interrupted. Fang was with her, and behind him stood a tall, powerfully built man with a surprisingly ordinary face. He was dressed like a mercenary with an awful lot of brass decoration on his old lamellar armor and did not look anything like I'd expected a yozi to look, which was how I knew for certain that he was the one.

Though I trusted the strength of my father's gift, I still tried not took look at Lucretia as she said the word "Sidereals". If I got hold of the Heaven Sent Sword before Khaaj, I already knew that I would hand myself right over to the Bureau of Destiny. What the Jupiter had done to me was far worse than just stamping a target on my head. She'd somehow made me _want_ to follow her rules!

"How do you know about Sidereals, mortal?" She asked me. "They conceal their existence from all of Creation?"

"If you complained less, you'd catch a lot more." I informed her.

"Oh, I do like this one! Fang cackled. "Can we keep him?"

"We have a horse available." Brock reminded the yozi. He gestured to Paradox. I couldn't remember what he'd told me the animal's name actually was.

"Infernals." Khaaj snorted. "They just don't make them like they used to. So what say you, 'Dorabo'? Will you swear to The Riders Al-Khayl?"

"I won't swear. But I'll come along if you'll have me." I replied.

"Is there a particular reason you're so impudent?" He demanded.

"No. I just don't trust anyone." I informed him.

"And you're not afraid of me?" He pressed.

I studied him for a moment. "No." I decided.

"Don't even _try _to steal my secrets, Dorabo!" He warned me ominously, mounting his horse as Fang brought it to him.

As the yozi and his mount both discorporated, I smiled slightly despite myself. Khaaj had already given up two secrets to me, but I wasn't going to tell him so. Dangerous as he was, I imagined that he might balk at the suggestion that _he had no idea what to do if he actually found the Heaven Sent Sword._.. especially since it was true. I also found it amusing to discover that he actually_ liked_ me. So long as I didn't do anything unforgivably stupid, I was in the ideal position to exploit him_. _Before Khaaj realized that he'd been had, half of Heaven would come blazing in to save the day. And if I played my cards right, by the time they arrived I could be sitting with a yozi neatly packaged up for his return trip to Malfeas and a nice cup of tea.

I smiled slightly. Jupiter was right. It was _much _more fun being one of the good guys.


	14. Chapter 14 - Estelle

Estelle

I left Anathema's well before Munno or Genji, but I didn't go back to our rooms at _The Wild Rover_. If we were going to be meeting with the rulers of Nexus in the morning, I needed more information about them. Since all of the Solars seemed to be gathering in Harlotry for a "birthday party", I had the perfect opportunity to poke around their homes. The one I was most anxious to avoid was the Twilight Caste and his Paradox-creating construct. Fortunately, without Genji in tow, I didn't need to be stingy about using my Charms.

It wasn't difficult to find out where the Solars were living. Apparently, the five of them had taken up residence inside the palatial White Gold Tower, located in the center of what used to be the Firewander District. It surprised me that they were sharing accommodations when there were so many other First Age estates all around the city they might have easily claimed. I suspected they were paranoid. Old habits died hard, and while some ambitious Dragonbloods might try taking out a single Solar, there weren't many folks in Heaven or Creation that would be a match for a whole Circle of them.

I donned a Resplendent Destiny under the constellation of The Lovers that I hadn't used in some time, expecting to run into at least a few guards as I made my approach. To my surprise, there was no one loitering around the tower at all except for a single drunk whore passed out on the front steps. Still, it seemed silly to walk right inside, so I slipped around back and let myself in through a ground floor window instead.

I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to go from the hunted "enemies of Creation" to being rulers of a city, but if the five Solars of Nexus were holed up together because they were afraid, why was it so easy to sneak into their fortress?

White Gold Tower was as impressive inside as it was from the street. The marble corridors reminded me of the public reception area which surrounded the Jade Pleasure Dome in Yu-Shan. The place was huge and labyrinthine. It was also suspiciously quiet.

I made my way through a courtyard garden that would have made any botanist or apothecary green with envy. Climbing roses and beautiful flowering plum trees surrounded a perfectly blue reflecting pool. When I looked up at the stars overhead, I was surprised to see that an Essence-powered grid recorded their positions and made calculations. It was a tool designed for Sidereal Astrology which shouldn't have been helpful to the Solars... unless they knew far more than they were ever meant to.

I noticed that the device was meticulously following the constellation of The Mask. It was moving at an alarming speed, which meant that whatever mess Oversight had thrown me into was quickly escalating. The Mask had been shattered more than a thousand years ago during the Usurpation when Heaven had decided to conceal its agents from Creation. If the parts of The Mask were returning to their original positions, as the Solar's device seemed to be anticipating they would, what did that mean?

Was it possible that the whole world would once again know about the existence of Sidereals?

I found the control mechanism for the device and gave it a series of commands to throw it off track. The meticulously plotted lines tracking the movement of The Mask immediately devolved into a mess of scribbles. I was sure that the Twilight Caste would suspect Sidereal meddling, but the last thing I needed was one of the Solars figuring out what was going on before I did.

I headed out of the garden and up the stairs of the tower itself. All of the walls were covered with maps and notes made in Old Realm by someone whose penmanship was far worse than my own. A fairly substantial library filled three of the rooms on the second floor of the tower. The fourth room was virtually empty except for a bed that looked as if it were never slept in, a small chest of tools, an old kerosene lantern, and two unopened crates of explosives. A single ripe peach sat on the windowsill. As I picked it up to have a look at it, I caught a distinct whiff of firewand ammunition. I thought I saw the reflection of someone sneaking up behind me in the window, but when I turned, there was no one there.

I went up the stairs again. The layout on the third floor was identical to the second floor, four small rooms arranged in a circle around the central staircase. One of the rooms was completely empty except for a suit of battered lamellar armor and an old sword which hung on the wall in a place of honor. There was a bed, a desk with nothing of interest inside of it, and a chest of drawers. Evidentially, the resident of the space had a habit of ordering take-away from local restaurants because there were dozens of boxes piled in the trash but no wasted food. I found an orange silk sash under the bed saturated with a woman's perfume, but all of the clothing in the room seemed to belong to a man. Once again, there was nothing remotely interesting on the premises, not even when I tested for hidden doors with Charms.

The fourth floor was completely empty, and all of the walls were singed with black. Evidently, there'd been a big fire and things had only just been cleaned up.

If the Solars were actually living inside White Gold tower, they certainly weren't living extravagantly... or at least that was what I though before I made it up to the fifth floor. There were clothes _everywhere_, empty bottles of wine on the stairs, and a bed big enough for _lots _of company. Little artifacts were scattered throughout the mess and one room was absolutely filled with weapons, including what appeared to be half of a disassembled warstrider. A small space near the largest window was cleared of clutter and there was a simple wooden bench sitting there, positioned perfectly to observe the eastern horizon.

I went up to the sixth floor. The space was illuminated with blue light. All of the walls and ceilings were inlaid with complex patterns of orichalcum and moonsilver which showed the positions of the sun, the moon, and the stars. The floor was a huge prayer wheel made of marble and the energy that filled the space pulsed like a heartbeat.

The room appeared to be completely empty with the exception of a round stone table surrounded by five chairs. The table was burned black in some places and crumbling like an ancient ruin. I realized almost immediately that I was looking at what was left of the Well of Udr, the devastating reality-bending device that had formerly imprisoned the Primordial known as The Weeping Maiden. Though without a Primordial inside, it couldn't terraform large portions of Creation again, the residual power that flowed through the artifact was clearly enough that the Solars felt compelled to keep it close by.

Someone tapped my shoulder and I jumped right out of my skin. The woman behind me smirked. Dressed entirely in black with a piece of First Age shroud cloth wrapped around her head, she was almost invisible even when I looked directly at her. It occurred to me belatedly that she was the same drunk whore I'd seen earlier. Of course, she was not at all drunk. Evaluating her firewands and the dagger in her boot, I suspected that she was actually the Night Caste of the infamous Nexus Circle... which certainly explained how she'd snuck up on me so easily.

"Looking for something?" The Solar teased.

I decided to take full advantage of my Resplendent Destiny. The role I was playing under The Lovers required that I act sweet and somewhat stupid, which was very easy for me. "Um, well, I heard there was supposed to be a party? So, like... where is it?"

"The party is downtown." She replied. "But if you were really looking for the festivities, you would have knocked on the front door, _not _climbed in the back window!"

"All right, you caught me!" I sighed in defeat. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to see what this place looked like inside. Because it's super mysterious, you know?" It was the truth, more or less, and the Solar seemed to believe me.

"You could have just asked. A lot of people are curious. We give tours all the time." She laughed.

"Really?" I didn't have to pretend to be surprised.

"Well, it helps our reputations." The Solar explained. "As I'm sure you've noticed, there isn't very much to see. Bedrooms are up here, the kitchen's downstairs."

"So... like... where's all your treasure and weapons and stuff?" I pressed.

"Treasure? Well, I hate to burst your bubble, sweetie, but I don't actually have any treasure. I'm sure there's a bit still buried somewhere under this city, but I haven't found it yet. Honestly, it's not like we're hiding some kind of massive arsenal!" The Solar rolled her eyes.

That was a boldfaced lie, but I didn't call her on it. Before the mess with the Well of Udr, I'd been inside Veritas Ilumio's factory cathedral myself. The Nexus Solars had _a lot _more than a few lightning ballista stashed away. Of course, if anyone knew that they had multiple First Age airships and a massive flying fortress at their disposal, Lookshy and The Realm would both start moving forward with their invasion plans.

"Oh." I tried to sound disappointed.

The Solar laughed. "I tell ya, sometimes I think people would be happier if we really were demons trying to conquer all of Creation. I'm sorry that you're not impressed. But I hope you'll sleep better at night." She gave me a pat on the back and walked with me all the way down the stairs and out the front door.

I stared up at White Gold Tower for a long while. As I'd suspected from the beginning, the Solars were using the ancient fortress as a cover. Whatever they were really up to was well-hidden, and probably with good reason. I didn't know what could be worse than setting a Primordial loose in a heavily populated city, but I had the sneaking suspicion that I would soon find out.

When I made it back to The Wild Rover, my mailbox was waiting for me. A set of orders from my Division head warned me to stay out of White Gold Tower, and a set of orders from Oversight told me to continue investigating the Solars while keeping an eye on both Genji and Munno. Of course, orders from Oversight always took precedence, but I didn't like the idea of running afoul of Yaogin. He was pretty reasonable most of the time, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he had been the Maiden of Serenity's favorite plaything for thousands of years. Most people underestimate the kind of power that a concubine can truly wield over his or her master or mistress. Of course, around the Cerulean Lute knowing who was sleeping with whom was the best way to get personal favors from higher-ranking Division members.

I was about to settle into bed myself when a knock came at my door. It was Munno. He was dressed just as he had been when I'd left him at Anathema's, except he'd apparently won one of the honors of the evening, a gold paper crown. He also still had paint on his face.

"I thought you would be asleep by now." Munno smiled slightly, observing my new orders and the star chart I'd been marking on my bedside table.

"My Division likes to keep me busy." I replied, attempting to sound much more cheerful than I felt. "Where's Genji?"

"Asleep. You know, I didn't think Wood-Aspects could get drunk, but apparently that Emerald Viper brews some dangerous ale." He rolled his eyes.

"Lunar Brew is nasty stuff. You didn't drink any of it, did you?" I asked.

"No, I had two glasses of very nice wine. I'm in my right mind." Munno sighed. He sat down in the chair across from my bed. I noticed that he had retrieved the Heaven-Sent Sword from its hiding place and was carrying it strapped to his back.

"Where are you going?" I wondered, sensing that he was up to something.

"Nowhere. Not far anyway. It's just that I can't sleep and I don't want this sword out of my sight." He admitted. "There's something going on in this city. Nothing is what it appears to be."

"Well, it virtually never is." I nodded. "Did you think about what you're going to say to Genji?"

"Actually, I already spoke to him. After you left. Before he got drunk." Munno replied.

"And?" I pressed.

"And then he got drunk." Munno sighed.

"You did the right thing. He deserves the truth. He just needs time." I paused.

"Time." Munno echoed. That was something we were running out of, and I knew it as well as Munno did. We sat in silence for a little while.

"What will you do when we complete our mission?" Munno wondered.

"The same thing I always do." I admitted. "Wait for my next mission."

"What would you do if Heaven had no more use for you?" He asked.

"Oh, that'll never happen!" I sighed heavily.

"But if it did?" He pressed.

"I don't know." I considered the question. "I don't think any Sidereal could answer that question. We're kind of made for our jobs."

"I suppose I should be glad I'm not an Exalt." Munno said.

"Well, with great power comes great responsibility." I replied.

"Yes, and this hero business is very tiring." He admitted.

"You still have paint on you." I informed him, and he squinted to have a look at his reflection in the window. I sighed and wiped the gold off of his face with the sleeve of my shirt. He stopped my hand and held it. I could have pulled away if I'd chosen to, but Munno was very strong. More importantly, he wasn't holding me to be rude, but because he needed to hold onto something. I knew what he was struggling with. He'd accepted a mission that he knew would cost his life and was trying to use the time he had left to make up for twenty years of hiding from the world.

"I want you to know how much I... appreciate everything you've done. I don't think I ever would have left my mountain if you hadn't come for me." He admitted.

I bit my tongue so that I wouldn't say what I was thinking, because I knew Munno wouldn't like it. So many Exalts I'd met over the years subscribed to the philosophy that the Incarnae were incapable of making mistakes and that everything they did was for a good reason. But as I thought about some of my peers who were up for Audit, I felt a surge of anger and frustration.

Munno wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, but what he did best was nothing at all. It was completely unfair that anyone could be so wholly _good _without trying. Why did someone like him have to count the days that he had left while arrogant Dragonbloods, insane Solars, barbaric Lunars, and crooked Sidereals wasted hundreds or even thousands of years.

Maybe the Incarnae _did _make mistakes. Or worse still... maybe they didn't care?

I started shaking despite myself. Munno steadied me as the strength went out of my body and I held onto his hand, even tighter as I started to cry. I hadn't cried in a very long time. It wasn't like me to be weak when there was work to be done, but following orders had never felt so personal before. The more instructions I was given, the less I wanted to obey them. So far, my superiors hadn't mentioned anything about Munno's impending death. That could only mean that they didn't think I needed to know.

Despite being the best man I had ever known, Munno wasn't _important _enough for Heaven.

It was completely unfair! Everything about the situation that Oversight had forced me into was being to feel like one of The Green Lord's horrible games. I could almost feel the fae's soulless eyes on me, all of them waiting in eager anticipation. Was the "Plain" child prettier than the "Shaped" one? Which one would be destroyed? Neither of us were significant enough to care about. The Green Lord didn't even know our names, and yet he'd already decided that one of us had to die!

I remembered my twin sister's last moment with clarity. The memory cut like a knife. I thought I'd put it behind me, but I realized then that I hadn't. I'd just kept myself from getting too close to anyone so that I wouldn't have to feel that hurt again. It was hard enough to lose a friend on the battlefield. It was much worse to know that someone was going to be killed without being able to do anything about it.

"Don't cry. There's no reason to cry. This is the way it is. It's okay." Munno said, though I wasn't sure what he meant by that. I didn't think he knew what kind of thoughts were whirling through my head, but he usually surprised me by being a lot sharper than I gave him credit for.

"Heaven isn't perfect, Munno." I told him. "It's a mess. And sometimes... I don't even know if what I'm doing is right at all."

"What? Killing the demon? Saving the world? How could that not be right?" He demanded.

"It isn't fair that it has to be you." I protested. "Why not one of those Solars or someone..."

I didn't finish what I'd started to say. It seemed cruel to remind Munno that he didn't stand a chance. He could barely lift the Heaven-Sent sword. Even Genji, who was more of an artist and savant than a warrior, would have been a better match for the demon.

"Who else could it be? It's my legend, isn't it? Only appropriate that I should have to live up to it. Estelle, I know you're only doing what Heaven wants you to, but... I did not realize how much I needed this." Munno paused. "To... prove that I can still do something. That... one does not have to be Chosen by Heaven to make good in this world."

I couldn't find words to say anything useful, and Munno obviously didn't expect me to respond. It felt very nice just resting my head on his shoulder. The way he'd looked at Rhapsody had made me extremely jealous, and though I was still not sure how I felt about Munno being Genji's father, I still wanted to be close to him.

He rubbed some of the tension out of my shoulders. "These knots in your back are unbelievable. It's a wonder you can walk at all." He informed me. "You shouldn't carry around so much stress. It'll make you old before your time."

"I'm already four times older than you." I reminded him.

"Yes, but usually you don't look it!" He teased, brushing my hair out of my face. I stopped his wandering fingertips and bit down hard on my lip. What I wanted to do was kiss him, but I didn't know how he would react.

"I think we should both get some sleep." I decided.

"That's probably best." Munno nodded. He kissed the top of my head very softly, slowly stood up, and held my hand for a long time before letting go. I watched him as he left. As the door closed between us, I sighed heavily, drawing my knees up to my chest. Hugging myself didn't help. If anything, it made me feel even more lonely. I thought about Munno in his own room and wondered if I had the courage to change my mind. I hadn't been specifically ordered to stay away from him, and though getting romantically involved with people you were assigned to watch was considered bad form, most Chosen of Serenity were rather notorious for getting their charges out of their clothes and into bed.

The trouble was, I knew that I was already incapable of accepting Munno's Fate. How much worse did really I want to make it for myself?

I took one more long look at the stars and then felt the blood freeze in my veins as I caught sight of a familiar shadow running down the street in the direction of the harbor.

It was Genji.

Where was he going _drunk_ in the middle of the night?

Or was he drunk at all? Maybe he'd only pretended to be inebriated to get rid of Munno.

I hesitated. Though part of me wanted to grab Munno first, I couldn't shake the conversation we'd just had. If I didn't want to do something unforgivably stupid like defy the will of Heaven, I had to put some distance between us before we came to face Iyutha. Seizing my swords from under my bed, I leapt out the window and raced after Genji.

It had already been a very long night and I had a sinking feeling that I would still be on my feet by the time the sun cleared the horizon.

Genji obviously didn't notice that anyone was following him. He made a line straight for the Temple District and paused on the steps outside of a palatial building dedicated to the Dragon of Wood. It was surprising to see that the Immaculate Order had maintained any sort of foothold in Nexus, but apparently part of the reason that the Solars had been so successful in their takeover was that they had legalized the worship of all Gods, not only their own patron.

Keeping a safe distance from Genji, I noticed new shrines dedicated to a dozen little Gods including the God of Mercenaries, who was a good friend of mine. Before following Genji inside the Temple of Sextes Jylis, I composed myself and invoked a Charm so that I would hopefully escape his notice. I blinked in surprise as I suddenly caught sight of the symbol for Venus on a beautiful white marble structure across from the Temple of the Unconquered Sun. If I was feeling short on Serenity, maybe I should ask for some help? Of course, Venus wasn't likely to notice me at all, but I wouldn't lose anything by sending her a prayer.

Taking care not to make a nuisance of myself, I slipped past the young Immaculate monk who was nearly asleep inside the temple's entrance. Genji had gone straight to the main chamber and was on his knees in a bed of climbing ivy and night-blooming white flowers. As befitted the Dragon of Wood, the interior of the temple was filled with green. An idol of Sextes Jylis shaped from two living sandlewood trees surveyed the room with a quiet, calculating expression. Genji was a perfect choice for the Dragon. He was smart and inquisitive, but as Munno had observed, he had the heart of a poet.

"What am I supposed to do?" Genji demanded, as if expected the Dragon to answer him. "The only person who ever gave a damn about me, and she's a traitor to the realm! Working for the Anathema! And my father..." He paused for a moment. "He said to me when I left for The Heptagram, 'Damnit Genji, why can't you be more like my son?" It was strange, I thought he misspoke, but... he knew, didn't he? And he lied to me all this time." He stared up at the Dragon. "Give me something to believe in!" He demanded.

Of course, there was no response.

"It doesn't work that way." I interrupted, stepping out of my hiding place.

"Estelle?" Genji blinked in surprise. "You followed me?"

"Faith doesn't work that way." I continued. "You have to believe even when it isn't easy, even when you have no reason to. If you were so weak that you needed the Dragons to make your life easy, you never would have been Chosen."

"I _need _answers!" He shook his head heavily. "I'm a scholar, I have to ask questions! I can't help it! I went looking because I wanted to know, but now I wish I had never left home because everything I thought was true about the world is all wrong and now I don't know _anything_ at all!" He buried his head in his hands.

"You know that it's all wrong." I reminded him. "So now the question is... do you want to make it better?"

He looked up, staring at me incredulously, and then started to smile slightly. It was a bitter smile, but something in his face also seemed victorious. "You want me to turn traitor? You're with those Anathema, aren't you? I should have guessed it."

"Actually, no." I replied. "I'm honestly not a big fan of Solars. They're all crazy and they can be unbelievably dangerous... but they're _not _what the Immaculate Order says they are. They're not demons."

"I know. And that's part of what's killing me right now. When we went to see The Smiths of Round-Top Mountain, there was such power in that place! No sorcerer could have ignored it! And I've summoned demons before. I had to, to complete my training at The Heptagram. But what I felt there when they were making that sword... I can't even describe it."

"Heaven." I supplied. "They invoked the will of Heaven."

Genji nodded.

"And this city..." He trailed off into silence. "It's_ so much more _than anything I'd ever imagined possible! I want to find the dark side of all this. I want to see the ugliness under the gilded skin! I want to believe that this place is wrong, and that the Anathema are monsters but I..."

"I _can't _hate him!" Genji sighed in defeat.

Of course, I knew that he was talking about The Faeslayer. The Dawn Caste was singularly unforgettable and even knowing what I knew about how dangerous he and his Circlemates were, I couldn't deny that they had done a very impressive job of cleaning up what had formerly been one of the worst cities in Creation. Though I was sure my sifu would strangle me for even suggesting such a thing, I was beginning to wonder if there wasn't some merit to the Gold Faction's position. Maybe our predecessors had been wrong to destroy the work of the Incarnae and imprison all of the Solars. The movement of The Mask certainly felt ominous at any rate, and it was getting progressively harder for me to have any faith in what my superiors were telling me, especially since they considered Munno to be disposable. Perhaps Genji and I were not so different after all. Maybe I didn't really know anything either.

"So don't hate him." I offered Genji my hand. "Don't make any decisions yet. Stay with me and Munno, and we'll figure out things as we go."

He sighed heavily and slowly rose to his feet. "That helps, somehow. You know, I think I can see why he likes you. All of this madness with the sword and the Anathema and everything that's happened so far? I'm tearing my hair out and somehow you're perfectly calm!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that! If you want the truth, this whole business terrifies me. But there's no use in fighting when you don't have a target in sight." I laughed slightly. "The trick is to be like a duck." I explained. "Appear calm on the surface, but keep paddling like hell. Don't give up. But don't let anyone see you sweat. Can you do that?"

"Of course I can. I'm a Prince of the Earth, aren't I?" He smiled slightly.

"So did you actually drink that Lunar Brew at Anathema's?" I pressed as we left the temple and began walking back to _The Wild Rover_.

"Wood-Aspect." He replied. "Immune to poison."

"Munno was convinced that you were drunk." I informed him.

"He was worried about me?" Genji wondered.

"He seemed to think you'd sleep it off." I admitted. "But he's a good man. He worries about everyone."

"Do you think he can do it? Slay the demon?" Genji pressed.

"I know he can do it." I replied.

The horizon was beginning to glow faintly purple. Sunrise wasn't far off. Genji squinted at the light and groaned. "I suppose this means we won't actually be getting any sleep."

"That's okay, we'll just get coffee." I replied.

"Coffee?" Genji echoed. "What's that?"

"You've never had coffee before?" I laughed. Coming from Yu-Shan, it was sometimes easy to forget that even the busiest travelers in Creation didn't cover as much ground as I did. Places like The Imperial City, Nexus, and Great Forks were very cosmopolitan, but things like chocolate and curry weren't always easy to come by. "Coffee is a kind of drink. Well, I guess you might be immune to it, being a Wood-Aspect. But you'll have to try it anyway. Nexus is a big city. We should be able to find some."

When we made it back to The Wild Rover, Munno was waiting for us in the common room. He looked like he hadn't slept either, and the proprietor of the inn was brewing something on his stove that I recognized immediately.

Genji stared as the innkeeper poured us each a cup.

"Ah, coffee! Nectar of the Gods, elixir of life!" I proclaimed.

"If you say so." Genji wrinkled his nose and took a hesitant sip. His eyes widened immediately.

"So you're not immune?" I laughed. "You know what this means, right? Someone up there loves you and wants you to be happy!"

"It's amazing! I'm... I'm completely awake!" He stammered. "Is there... more?

Ohthankyou! Thankyousomuch, this is really absolutely wonderful!" Genji nearly fell off his stool as the innkeeper reached out to refill his cup.

"I think that's enough for now." Munno sighed. "We do have a breakfast invitation, and it's probably best if you can still hold your chopsticks when we get there."

"Do you.. do you think they'll have coffee?" Genji pressed.

I rolled my eyes. Munno laughed.

A familiar chime rang out, loud and clear. The innkeeper swore incoherently in Rivertongue and dropped his coffee, shattering his clay mug on the floor. I turned around very slowly and stared in disbelief at my mailbox which had just appeared in full view of Genji, Munno, the innkeeper and at least a dozen other patrons of The Wild Rover who were _not _supposed to know about the existence of Sidereals.

"_What _is that?" Genji demanded.

"My mailbox." I replied, fighting the chill that raced down my spine.

"It just appeared! Out of nowhere!" Genji protested. "You're not... you're not Anathema, are you?"

He drew away from me as if he'd just been struck by a snake.

"No. Estelle works for Heaven." Munno whispered.

Genji blinked in disbelief. "What?" He hissed. "What is this about?"

"I don't know yet. Let me find out." I slowly opened the box and withdrew a single piece of paper stamped with Oversight's black seal. I opened the paper very carefully.

_Get out._

"Get out." I read. Then, before my eyes, another word appeared on the paper.

_Now_.

"Everyone, get out of here now!" I shouted. With a sound like a thunderclap, the roof came crashing down on us. Wooden beams and rubble fell from the ceiling and The Wild Rover's patrons screamed and ran for the exits.

Munno grabbed me by the arm and Genji dove out the front door just ahead of us, right before the whole building collapsed. As the cloud of dust began to clear and we struggled to free ourselves from the rubble, a sharp, sulphurous smell caught my nose. I squinted at the huge black shadow silhouetted in the rising sun. At first glance, it looked like a dragon, but Genji wasn't fooled. He immediately reached for his daiklave and Munno's hand came to rest on the hilt of the Heaven-Sent sword.

"What is that?" Someone demanded.

"Iyutha." Munno replied with certainty. "The demon's found us."


End file.
